CarBrandLogos archive · BMW · 2005

BMWM6

A nameplate used twice, on two entirely different arguments about what a fast coupé is.

Photo: OSX · Public domain

The story

A defining chapter in BMW history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the BMW M6, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

The M6 badge has had two separate lives. The first was the E24 of the 1980s — sold as the M635CSi in Europe and the M6 in North America, a shark-nosed coupé carrying the M1's M88 straight-six in a body that had begun life in 1976. It was a grand tourer that happened to have a racing engine.

BMW M6 Convertible · FotoSleuth · CC BY 2.0

Design and engineering

The second arrived in 2005 on the E63, and it was a very different proposition: the same 5.0-litre V10 as the E60 M5, a carbon-fibre roof, a seven-speed single-clutch automated gearbox, and an electronics suite complicated enough to need its own button on the wheel. It made 500 hp and revved to 8,250 rpm, and it divided opinion between people who found it magnificent and people who found it exhausting.

BMW M6 Convertible · ilikewaffles11 · CC BY 2.0

In production

The F12 generation of 2012 swapped the V10 for a twin-turbocharged 4.4-litre V8, gaining torque and losing the noise that had been half the point. A Gran Coupé four-door followed.

BMW M6 E63 - Flickr - Alexandre Prévot · Alexandre Prévot from Nancy, France · CC BY-SA 2.0

Legacy

Production ended in 2019, and the M8 took its place. Between them the two M6s bracket the whole modern history of the division: one is a road car with a racing engine dropped in, the other is a technology exercise with a coupé body over it.

At a glance