[wesleyan92]

Originally Posted by GarageMadness

Why do these British car reviewers always keep comparing the Porsche GT4 to BMW M cars. There is no comparison. Porsche is the penultimate car to own and drive, specifically on the track. GT4 in the hands of an experienced driver will always beat any M car. The mere fact a higher HP G80 is being compared to a mid-level Porsche is absurd as well. Let's compare the top M car vs the top Porsche GT. The M cars will get spanked each and every time. And this guy is lame. I've seen his reviews before. Wish they would all stop trying to be like a Jeremy Clarkson on these reviews.

What do you mean by Porsche's being the "penultimate" car to own?

[VIERsr]

Originally Posted by lixiang7349

Put the GT3 engine in the Porsche and you have a perfect car.

[GarageMadness]

Originally Posted by wesleyan92

What do you mean by Porsche's being the "penultimate" car to own?

I would take a Porsche over an M3/M4 any day of the week for the pure driving experience.

[gatorfast]

Originally Posted by wesleyan92

What do you mean by Porsche's being the "penultimate" car to own?

There is only one more car he plans on owning :

[Eddien123]

Originally Posted by lixiang7349

Put the BMW engine in the Porsche and you have a perfect car.

S58 is amazing but I'd take that flat 6 anyway over bmws L6

[HeelToeShift]

Originally Posted by Sedan_Clan

….but the GT4 is significantly lighter, so even with lower power the weight advantage still favors the GT4. The G8X just simply handles very, very well for its size and it has power to compliment.

Power to weight advantage still heavily favors the M4. GT4 is 3200 lbs and 414 hp vs the M4 which is 3700 lbs and 503 hp (but really is more like 550-560) so that is 7.73 lbs per hp in the GT4 and 7.36 lbs per hp for the m4 if you go by factory, or 6.7 lbs per hp if using real world dyno numbers.

Again, power makes up for a lot especially at the major advantage of what we're talking about here. A Taycan turbo on VIR beats the M8 Competition by .3 seconds despite a much worse power to weight (7.6) vs 7.0 for the M8. Porsche always hit way above their power ratings - case in point the 992 GT3 with a similar power to weight as the M4 GTS is over 30 seconds per lap faster on the N'Ring. The M4 GTS was not even as fast as a second gen 991 Carrera S on the N'Ring and the 911 was only equipped with normal summer tires.

[tareemaa]

Originally Posted by emtreefowty

My previous ride was a Cayman S, my dad owns an M4 and now driving an M340ix I've spent a considerable of time owning/driving the tamer version of both these vehicles. After hours and hour in each- the biggest difference when driving is the feel in weight. The Porsche feels like a go-kart on steroids, it's nimble, agile, tiny and you push 1 sport button to set it. The m4 and m340ix have the weight of a car and configuration settings of a cockpit. They're both awesome but in very different ways, and the thing not mentioned in any "porsche vs. x" reviews is this- if you own a Porsche, you NEED another car. Even as a single guy with no kids, the impracticality is off the charts in a Porsche.

I'm short- the Porsche is the high maintenance woman that drives you crazy, the M is the one you marry

gotta disagree with you on some of this. Porsches are VERY daily driver friendly, if i really wanted to I could daily my GT4. they are more reliable than bimmers, offer tons of cargo space for what they are. If you need rear seats cuz of kids, 911s are great for that.

If you want MAX practicality with a "sports car" than yes ///M cars will win, but porsches are quite practical as long as you dont constantly needs TONs of cargo space.

IMHO, everyone should marry a porsche. Everything else can come and go.

Ive had almost every iteration of the M3, as well 997.2 911 4S, 991.1 4S, GT3, 996 911 Turbo. Currently in an E90 M3 and GT4.

[jmg]

Originally Posted by EXE46

The only take-away here is that this new gen M3/M4 are the most competent of all prior gens BMW has made, despite weight/ looks yada yada. As for GT4, nothing to see here, it's already highly regarded as one of the best sports cars money can buy. It's price point in NA also reflects that, M3/M4 is cheap in comparison.


M3/M4 was never a replacement or substitute for a GT4 so the fact that this new generation of M3/M4 can be competitive on a track with something as incredible as a GT4 is massive compliment to the BMW. No other generation of M3/M4 was this competitive despite all the noise we hear from the dissenters on the interwebs.

If money was no object, my dream garage would have a PDK GT4 and a run of the mill Lexus. One for reliability and under the radar commute and the other for sheer driving pleasure and hooliganism.

I've both been out driven and have out driven GT4's on the track in my F80 and I am nowhere close to being the fastest on the track. In fact I know a lot of F80 drivers who track and regularly beat GT3's let along GT4's. The G80 might close the gap even more between itself and the GT4, but it's not the first time the M3/4 was competitive with the "big boys".

Case in point: the F80 M3 CS was two seconds faster than the 981 GT4 (7:38 vs 7:40) on the Ring.

[Sedan_Clan]

Originally Posted by tareemaa

gotta disagree with you on some of this. Porsches are VERY daily driver friendly, if i really wanted to I could daily my GT4. they are more reliable than bimmers, offer tons of cargo space for what they are. If you need rear seats cuz of kids, 911s are great for that.

If you want MAX practicality with a "sports car" than yes ///M cars will win, but porsches are quite practical as long as you dont constantly needs TONs of cargo space.

IMHO, everyone should marry a porsche. Everything else can come and go.

Ive had almost every iteration of the M3, as well 997.2 911 4S, 991.1 4S, GT3, 996 911 Turbo. Currently in an E90 M3 and GT4.

He never said they aren't daily driver friendly. You are being unrealistic though. If a 911 was someone's only car, there would be a lot that you cannot do with that car. I love Porsche's as much as the next enthusiast, but there are limitations. What's in the trunk of my Corolla on a daily basis won't even fit in a 992 911's frunk. If I ever needed to carry my patrol equipment home, it wouldn't happen in the Porsche without filling up my frunk and back seat to the brim (…blocking the entire rear view visibility) and scuffing up my leather for sure. If I needed to carry more than one person……good luck. What about getting that yard equipment home from Lowe's? Ughhh probably not! Moderate sized TV from Best Buy? Yeah right! I'm sure you understand where this is going.

[HeelToeShift]

Originally Posted by Eddien123

S58 is amazing but I'd take that flat 6 anyway over bmws L6

Agreed - this 4.0 liter is an N/A masterpiece and simply brilliant from any aspect and sounds incredible. I have the full Akrapovic exhaust on mine and it is even more incredible.

Originally Posted by jmg

I've both been out driven and have out driven GT4's on the track in my F80 and I am nowhere close to being the fastest on the track. In fact I know a lot of F80 drivers who track and regularly beat GT3's let along GT4's. The G80 might close the gap even more between itself and the GT4, but it's not the first time the M3/4 was competitive with the "big boys".

Case in point: the F80 M3 CS was two seconds faster than the 981 GT4 (7:38 vs 7:40) on the Ring.

Your case in point is not quite apple to apples, since the GT4 was manual and the CS DCT and again the CS had a massive power to weight advantage. Additionally, the N'Ring was repaved subsequent to the GT4 lap which resulted in new times being 3-5 seconds faster that the CS benefited from so the GT4 time on the same repaved track would have been 7:35-7:37 (or conversely the CS being 7:41-7:43) which is absurdly fast for a manual transmission 380 hp car and also corroborates the GT4 being faster.
Case in point is that the current GT4 with a manual is faster than the M4 GTS despite not having a dual clutch and lacking about 100 hp and way more torque.
As far as regularly beating anyone, track days arent really apples to apples either since no one is really racing directly, the prep of cars is not uniform, skills are all over the place and generally more expensive the car the less and less they're pushed hard. I was at a driving event where a 488 Pista and a Mclaren 600LT were being passed by everyone...that is certainly not representative of the car's capabilities nor would I ever infer such a conclusion as that is far too naive. This is why publications like Sport Auto are great for comparisons because the procedure is standardized and the driver is the same person or the same skill level.

[wesleyan92]

Originally Posted by gatorfast

There is only one more car he plans on owning :

LOL; I didn't want to come across as the grammar police but I was genuinely curious as to what he meant.

[adc]

Originally Posted by GarageMadness

GT4 in the hands of an experienced driver will always beat any M car.

I am not so sure. I met a guy at VIR with a modified but still street legal M2C running 2:01s, and his balsier younger friend with a track prepped new gen Supra who was running 2:00 flat. That is very very fast, by any measure.

Both cars were similar in brief and scope to a GT4. Both had 2 seats, AC and in the case of the M2 a bigger trunk than the Porsche. The M2 cost far less than the Porsche including mods and would spank it all day long on that track.

Would it do that on every track? Will it retain its value the way the GT4 does? Will it offer the same driving experience? Answer is probably not, but my point is that when you are comparing across sizeable price differences you have to account that in many cases the cheaper car can be modified and become very competitive.


Would I drive the wheels off of a $140-150k Porsche on track, the way I try with my M3? I am not so sure, since for me the Porsche would be a significant financial stress, and the M3 isn’t.

[///AVM]

Originally Posted by adc

. . .Would I drive the wheels off of a $140-150k Porsche on track, the way I try with my M3? I am not so sure, since for me the Porsche would be a significant financial stress, and the M3 isn’t.

ADC

Track or no track, your point is often ignored . . . there is a point when the financial burden exceeds enjoyability.

///AVM

[GarageMadness]

Originally Posted by adc

I am not so sure. I met a guy at VIR with a modified but still street legal M2C running 2:01s, and his balsier younger friend with a track prepped new gen Supra who was running 2:00 flat. That is very very fast, by any measure.

Both cars were similar in brief and scope to a GT4. Both had 2 seats, AC and in the case of the M2 a bigger trunk than the Porsche. The M2 cost far less than the Porsche including mods and would spank it all day long on that track.

Would it do that on every track? Will it retain its value the way the GT4 does? Will it offer the same driving experience? Answer is probably not, but my point is that when you are comparing across sizeable price differences you have to account that in many cases the cheaper car can be modified and become very competitive.


Would I drive the wheels off of a $140-150k Porsche on track, the way I try with my M3? I am not so sure, since for me the Porsche would be a significant financial stress, and the M3 isn't.

I run with NASA and I've been a passenger in 911s and Caymans with the TT class drivers. No M3/4 has ever been able to keep with them even though many try with heavily modified engines. Recently I was at CVR in CA and a modified Cayman S boosted to about 450+ HP ran off with the fastest times of the day competing against numerous Vettes, Camaros, and BMW cup cars. In AZ a few guys run Porsche cup cars as well and they are by far superior to anything out n track. This has been my experience being around skilled drivers.

Don't get me wrong, M cars great on track. I own one obviously but I'm not going to say a much heavier M3/M4 car will out run a similarly boosted/HP Porsche whether it's a 981, 718, or even a base 911 in the hands of TT class drivers and not HPDE weekend warriors like most of us.

Heavily optioned M3/4s can range into low six figures for sure, which incidentally is the price of a reasonably priced new GT4. I know plenty of people that drive $100k and above cars at 10-10s on the track. All relative based on discretionary funds and passion for tracking their cars.

GT2/3 cars are a whole different to story obviously.

[DL335D]

Originally Posted by HeelToeShift

I think if you broke down the lap, likely the capabilities are much higher on the turns in the GT4 but the massive power and torque advantages of the M4 show on the straights very well. Very similar to how a Panamera turbo can run the same 7:28 on the N'Ring as a GT4 despite being so much heavier, but also makes so much more power...on top of that the suspension and tire developments in recent years show you can take a large car and mask the weight well. Beyond that, I bet if Steve Sutcliffe were to do 10 or 20 laps, the GT4 will be more consistent and pull further and further ahead the longer it goes. Hero laps don't always tell you much...

Exactly. Porsche's can constantly perform on the track lap after lap. M cars have always struggled with this.

[KevinGS]

The fact that the G8X is even being legitimately compared to purpose-built, lighter weight sports car platforms like the Cayman GT4 is a wonderful thing for M fans, let alone holding its own, ON A TRACK.

Past M's would often be compared to base 911s, not the GT models.

So I have to applaud BMW for creating such an all-purpose and fun sporty car.

[adc]

Originally Posted by GarageMadness

I run with NASA and I've been a passenger in 911s and Caymans with the TT class drivers. No M3/4 has ever been able to keep with them even though many try with heavily modified engines. Recently I was at CVR in CA and a modified Cayman S boosted to about 450+ HP ran off with the fastest times of the day competing against numerous Vettes, Camaros, and BMW cup cars. In AZ a few guys run Porsche cup cars as well and they are by far superior to anything out n track. This has been my experience being around skilled drivers.

Don't get me wrong, M cars great on track. I own one obviously but I'm not going to say a much heavier M3/M4 car will out run a similarly boosted/HP Porsche whether it's a 981, 718, or even a base 911 in the hands of TT class drivers and not HPDE weekend warriors like most of us.

Heavily optioned M3/4s can range into low six figures for sure, which incidentally is the price of a reasonably priced new GT4. I know plenty of people that drive $100k and above cars at 10-10s on the track. All relative based on discretionary funds and passion for tracking their cars.

GT2/3 cars are a whole different to story obviously.

You are discussing race cars, and I am discussing street cars. Even in your example, NASA has different classes and within each class, the level of preparation of a race car (and driver) can vary hugely. Looking at the cars only, the spending power and the knowledge of the car’s builder greatly affect the outcome. In your example, you have no idea how much money went into that Cayman, nor do you know if perhaps it was driven by the most talented person on the west coast. Would he have posted a better time in a Corvette? Who knows.

I know folks who are into endurance racing (AER) and they are telling some very interesting things about these cars, the question of BMW vs Porsche comes up often as you can imagine, and the answer isn’t always clear cut.

Keep an open mind…

[Puuhapete]

Originally Posted by Ghostriderf80

Yes it makes perfect sense. .2 of a second is not much unless you're racing. Unless you have driven a Porsche and BMW it is hard to understand the difference and why he picked it.

I certainly would pick it too.

It's nice to look at, it's quick and rewarding and not known for teenagers living with their parents owning an M3 and doing donuts in a parking lot.

Porsche is King.

Well I DO drive a Porsche and have driven almost all variants of the 992. Not the Cayman GT4 though. Even if I drive a Porsche now, I think many Porsche owners are arrogant thinking their car is always the best one. I respect the opinion Porsche being mostly better on track but being more fun you could already argue. It always depends on what qualities you prefer. I am also not stating that the Taycan is the best EV on the market, it was just the best for me and I really enjoy the qualities the car is showing. I might enjoy the i4 in the future as much especially as it will be a LOT cheaper. Have to get used to that ugly front though first

[tallshortguy]

Originally Posted by Superjackson

The gt4 must have destroyed the bmw on corners to make up for the lack of turbo muscle..

Not really, the M4 only has a 4% better power to weight ratio than the GT4. The lower end powerband I'm sure helps as well but it shouldn't be a night and day difference by any means.

[Royboy85]

Originally Posted by Puuhapete

Well I DO drive a Porsche and have driven almost all variants of the 992. Not the Cayman GT4 though. Even if I drive a Porsche now, I think many Porsche owners are arrogant thinking their car is always the best one. I respect the opinion Porsche being mostly better on track but being more fun you could already argue. It always depends on what qualities you prefer. I am also not stating that the Taycan is the best EV on the market, it was just the best for me and I really enjoy the qualities the car is showing. I might enjoy the i4 in the future as much especially as it will be a LOT cheaper. Have to get used to that ugly front though first

I agree to most of this. Porsche definitely is not the King always. I have owned 2 Carreras (996 and 997.2 2s) and they did not feel somehow more special than the BMW:s I have owned. The 2012 E92 for sure felt more special than either of those Porsches. The newer Porsches seem to be like scalpels, being very fast on track and doing everything very well but at the same time being slightly boring.

[HeelToeShift]

Originally Posted by tallshortguy

Not really, the M4 only has a 4% better power to weight ratio than the GT4. The lower end powerband I'm sure helps as well but it shouldn't be a night and day difference by any means.

I also think the lap was a bit sloppy by Steve in the GT4.

As another data point, here is a manual GT4 vs the same M4 on Cups...where the GT4 was 3/4 of a second faster on another small-ish circuit.

I always say, we as consumers have it made. We have great options at various price points. These two are great examples of great performance made in different ways - one old school, analog and no turbos, the other gobs of power and torque via turbos in a more technology laden chassis and car.

[GarageMadness]

Originally Posted by adc

You are discussing race cars, and I am discussing street cars. Even in your example, NASA has different classes and within each class, the level of preparation of a race car (and driver) can vary hugely. Looking at the cars only, the spending power and the knowledge of the car's builder greatly affect the outcome. In your example, you have no idea how much money went into that Cayman, nor do you know if perhaps it was driven by the most talented person on the west coast. Would he have posted a better time in a Corvette? Who knows.

I know folks who are into endurance racing (AER) and they are telling some very interesting things about these cars, the question of BMW vs Porsche comes up often as you can imagine, and the answer isn't always clear cut.

Keep an open mind…

Agree to disagree. The comparison isn't even a good one. For every video showing the M4 is faster, there's another one showing GT4 is faster. On track for me personally, I like the power to weight and precise nature of a GT4. M3/4 are heavy sedan type vehicles and the chassis isn't as purposeful on the track as a Porsche….never will be.