Why Our BMW M2 Is the Perfect Road-Trip Car
Cities, mountains and deserts are all home turf for our yearlong review M2.
Ten years ago this past summer, my partner and I tied the knot, later driving off to the sunset-lit shores of Lake Tahoe for our honeymoon in a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 4x4 that our wedding party lovingly christened “the Sea Bus.” Seeking to celebrate a decade of partnership, we decided to revisit Lake Tahoe for a week of lakeside fun. Just as the Mercedes was perfect then, our yearlong review 2025 BMW M2 ended up being a similarly perfect fit.
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We split our journey down memory lane into three parts: The first leg would take us up from Los Angeles to San Francisco via freeway; the second across the Gold Rush–era mountain towns of the Sierra Nevada, to Tahoe; the third would see us down through the vast expanse of Death Valley on the way home. During those three legs, we came to the realization that for a family of two, the M2 is one heck of a road trip car, maybe one of the best.
Stress-Free Interstate and Urban Travel
At risk of eating my words, I think I discovered our M2’s absolute limit when it comes to space for people and things during our first leg from SoCal up to San Francisco, where we were planning to spend our first few nights with friends and catch a concert. We stuffed a large rolling suitcase, a carry-on-friendly duffel bag, a large backpack and handbag, a couple shopping bags of gifts, and another couple filled with food into it. Oh, and our 60-pound dog, her food, and, of course, her toys. It was … a lot of stuff, requiring us to temporarily slide the front seats forward to utilize space on the rear floor. Had we had one more bag, one of us would be riding on the roof. And it probably wouldn’t have been the dog.
Despite running out of space, the M2 made what would’ve otherwise been a sinfully boring 400-mile jaunt up California’s spine easy. With the engine happily spinning at around 3,000 rpm in sixth gear at 75 mph, there's always plenty of torque on tap to pass slower traffic without having to bother downshifting, while the automatic rev matching gave me one less thing to manage while dealing with traffic, which slowed to a crawl as we approached the Bay Area. The only things I wished for from the Bimmer were radar cruise control (only available on automatic M2s) and perhaps a little more refinement in its lane keep assist settings—I couldn’t quite find the goldilocks zone between not enough and too much assist.
Curvy Mountain Climbs? No Problem
The few days we spent in San Francisco in our M2 were a blur, but not because of any high speeds we were traveling. Instead, the BMW seamlessly blended into the scenery of driverless cars, trolleys, and cyclists. Its small size made it easy to park and maneuver around denser areas of the city, its trunk gave us valuable covered storage that some competitors lack, and the automatic hill hold function helped take the stress out of driving a manual transmission car in one of the hilliest cities in the nation.
Even so, we couldn’t wait to get out of the city. Cutting through towns like Placerville (formerly known as “Hangtown”) and Coloma, our route was stunning in its beauty. Tall pines and granite blurred past as we wound through Gold Rush towns en route to Tahoe. Here, the roads twisted and turned along the banks of the American River and its pioneer-era wagon tracks. Two westbound and a single eastbound lane up steep, curvy roads made for slow going as traffic stacked up behind big rigs and weekend traffic. I lived for the “Passing Lane Ahead” signs. As we neared, I’d toggle the bright red M1 button on the left side of the steering wheel, which cued up one of the custom drive modes I created: Sport Plus on the engine, Sport on the brakes and suspension, auto rev-match off (I’ve set up M2 to be more aggressive still). Then it’s simply a matter of heel-toeing down to third—this gear seems to cover everything given the stoutness of the Bimmer’s twin-turbo straight-six—and weaving down the passing lanes as we cut our way through the traffic.
As I was in this rhythm, I grew to really appreciate the M2’s exceptional chassis control and brake feel. The brakes are completely by-wire, but they feel natural underfoot with plenty of stopping power to slow back down as the passing lanes end, while the chassis easily handled left and right transitions as well as the all-too-common ruts caused by heavy trucks and heavier winters. Before we knew it, we’d cleared the biggest holdup of the day—an overloaded school-bus-turned-camper—and had the rest of the ribbony stretch of asphalt to ourselves until we were greeted by Tahoe’s deep blue shores.
