You’ll Never Believe All the Stuff That Fits In Our 2025 BMW M2
Now that the Corvette is a mid-engine exotic, the BMW M2 might just be the most practical sports car around.
I came to a startling realization as I was lugging 35 pounds of hockey gear, two sticks, a rollaboard carry-on, and a backpack through Los Angeles International Airport a few weeks back: How on earth did I get all this crap here? This wasn’t an existential crisis or a self-congratulatory pat on the back for my ability to manage the predawn crowds with a silly amount of luggage for a single person heading to New York for the weekend to play in a high school hockey alumni game—I was impressed that all this stuff fit just fine in the back of our 2025 BMW M2 coupe with room to spare. After all, it appeared as though I was leaving town with all my earthly possessions.
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To be honest, perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised. If there’s been one constant over the past six months or so with our BMW M2 it is the car’s seriously impressive practicality, with a deep trunk able to swallow loads of bags and a back seat that even adults can tolerate—a serious rarity among two-door coupes.
Junk in the Trunk
Our M2’s 13.8 cubic feet of trunk space might not sound like a lot in a world where most folks are driving around in compact SUVs with more than double that amount of space, but compared to other coupes on the market, the M2’s (and 2 Series Coupe’s) trunk is massive, with a wide opening and low floor. The M2’s closest rival among four seat coupes when it comes to trunk space would be the Ford Mustang at 13.5 cubic feet. Larger cars like the BMW M4 and Mercedes-AMG CLE 53 offer 15.5 and 9.8 cubic feet of trunk space, respectively.
What this means, practically speaking, is that there’s little our BMW M2 can’t handle. Take that airport trip for instance; with the center section of the 45/10/45 rear seat pass-through flipped down, I slid my hockey sticks through the gap (BMW, like other Euro automakers, offers this pass-through for skis), loaded in my massive hockey bag next and then my carry-on suitcase and a stuffed backpack, and finished with what felt like room to spare. My wife and I have even managed to fit a massive rolling suitcase and two carry-on-sized rollaboards when we had a wedding to attend. No Tetrising—or stress—necessary.
For the track rats among us, we suspect the M2 will happily swallow a set of spare wheels and tires plus tools for a weekend at the races.
Riding Four Up
It’s not only “stuff” that fits in the M2 but also people. Ignoring the BMW’s supremely comfortable and spacious front seats (thank goodness we skipped the crotch-busting sport buckets), the M2’s back seat is smartly packaged and actually proves tolerable for many adults, which is far from common among two-doors. At 6 feet tall, I admittedly don’t leave a ton of room for others behind me—with the driver’s seat in my driving position, I have to straddle the front seat with my knees splayed to fit—but shorter passengers have reported being perfectly fine for jaunts across town.
With the front passenger seat adjusted to a comfortable position for myself, however, I could spend a couple hours in the right rear seat; the foot well is generous, there are subtle carve outs in the front seat backs for my legs, and I have just a hair of headroom before my head brushes the headliner. Down the middle is a plastic cubby that we’re struggling to find much of a use for (loose phones or a wallet, perhaps; we’d prefer if they were cupholders), but we just as often flip the center section trunk pass-through down to use as an armrest.
My dog, a 60-pound mutt named Rosie, is also at ease in the rear seat—which is a surprise considering the only thing she loves more than “walk” is sticking her face out a car window. I don’t make it a point to put Rosie in the M2, because old-school pop-out rear windows in coupes seem to have died with the E46 3 Series, but she fits just fine. With a small towel to fill the cubby, a seat cover down, and the front seat motored forward, it’s easy for her to hop up onto the rear floor and then into the bench, where she’s got enough space to spread out in front of the rear HVAC vents or to sit up and look outside or up front for errant French fries.
Although we at MotorTrend collectively love the purity of two-door sports cars, there’s really something to be said for cars like the M2 that retain that extreme level of driver enjoyment while still allowing you to bring your loved ones and their things along for the ride—and our M2 does that in spades.
More on Our Long-Term 2025 BMW M2:
- Are We Going to Regret Our PVOTY Choice?
- Our 2025 BMW M2: Tested!
- The Long Way
- The One Way Our M2 is Like an EV
I generally like writing—especially when it’s about cars—but I hate writing about myself. So instead of blathering on about where I was born (New York City, in case you were wondering) or what type of cars I like (all of ’em, as long as it has a certain sense of soul or purpose), I’ll answer the one question I probably get most, right after what’s your favorite car (see above): How’d you get that job? Luck. Well, mostly. Hard work, too. Lots of it. I sort of fell into my major of journalism/mass communication at St. Bonaventure University and generally liked it a lot. In order to complete my degree senior year, we had to spend our last two semesters on some sort of project. Seeing as I loved cars and already spent a good portion of my time reading about cars on sites such as Motor Trend, I opted to create a car blog. I started a Tumblr, came up with a car-related name (The Stig’s American Cousin), signed up for media access on a bunch of manufacturer’s websites, and started writing. I did everything from cover new trim levels to reviewing my friends’ cars. I even wrote a really bad April Fool’s Day post about the next Subaru Impreza WRX being Toyota-Corolla-based. It was fun, and because it was fun, it never felt like work. Sometime after my blog had gotten off the ground, I noticed that Motor Trend was hiring for what’s now our Daily News Team. I sent in my résumé and a link to my blog. I got the job, and two weeks after graduation I made the move from New York to California. I’ve been happily plugging away at a keyboard—and driving some seriously awesome hardware—ever since.
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