- Come to daddy.
ALISTAIR WEAVER: Hi, I'm Alistair.
That's Jonathan.
This is the new BMW M2.
That's Edmund's very own Chevy Corvette Stingray.
And this is Edmund's UDrags let's get on with it.
[THEME MUSIC]
NARRATOR: We got a wild one for ya.
Today we have our very own long-term 2020 Chevrolet
Corvette Stingray with 495 horsepower and 470 pound-feet
of torque--
[STINGRAY REVVING ENGINE]
--going up against the, uh, handsome, 2023 BMW M2
with 453 horsepower and 406 pound-feet of torque.
[BMW M2 REVVING ENGINE]
These two are going head to head on our Edmunds UDrag
track, which starts with a quarter-mile drag,
then they hit the brakes, do a 180,
and power back to start-finish.
At the end of the first run, we'll swap drivers and lanes
and do it again.
Have you guys seen that new show, "Like and Subscribe,"
yet?
You have?
Isn't it good?
Oh, and do you want an instant cash offer for your car?
Then head on over to edmunds.com/sellmycar.
ALISTAIR WEAVER: So let's talk about how
we launched the new M2.
Cause frankly, it's a bit of an effort.
Firstly, because we like to prepare things in advance,
we've set up M2 mode.
So I press it once.
I press it twice.
Now, what that actually gives me, M2 Configuration.
Stay with me, people.
So what we've gone for here is Engine in Sport Plus,
Transmission in S3.
That's as fast a gear change as you can achieve.
Chassis in Sport, because it's a bit bumpy here.
So we don't go full stiff.
Steering in Sport, Brake in Sport.
DSC, Stability Control, off.
M Traction Control, that's different to Stability Control.
We've got that halfway in, five, Start Stop, off, M Sound,
on for the laugh.
And away we go.
Now, we go into Automatic mode, put my left foot
on the brake, right foot hard on the throttle.
And that should activate Launch Control.
But if you read the manual, it says
you've gotta drive around for 8 and 1/2 miles
and generally stand on one leg and sing the national anthem.
And then hopefully it'll work.
So, eh, we're flying blind a little bit.
But, hey, let's give it a go.
JONATHAN ELFALAN: I am in our long-term--
[DING SOUND]
--Corvette Stingray.
I haven't driven this car in a while,
so excited to do it here at UDrags.
I'm going to go through the launch sequence here,
which essentially, you want to put it in Track mode.
So that's usually two clicks to the right.
And then you're going to turn PTM,
which is Chevy's Performance Traction Management
System, all the way to Race.
So you double click that.
And that should bring up a window.
And then you go ahead and select Race
And then you're good to go, foot on the brake, mass accelerator.
Revs come up to I think roughly 3,500
RPM and just settles there.
It's a really nice sound.
And then this thing just leaves the line.
Chevy has the launch control dialed in this thing.
Anyways, let's go.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
WOMAN RECORDING: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
[TIRES SCREECHING]
Yeah!
Here we go, Corvette.
ALISTAIR WEAVER: [SIGHS] The Corvette's gone.
JONATHAN ELFALAN: Got it, got it, got it, got it.
[TIRES SCREECHING]
Patience, patience.
[TIRES SCREECHING]
ALISTAIR WEAVER: I launched a little bit of slip.
JONATHAN ELFALAN: See ya.
ALISTAIR WEAVER: Yeah, he's gone.
He's gone.
JONATHAN ELFALAN: So good.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ALISTAIR WEAVER: Ugh.
JONATHAN ELFALAN: So good.
ALISTAIR WEAVER: Yeah, you just had me.
It's all over in the launch.
We had just gone, and then, yeah,
I just never really saw you again after the first 20 yards.
JONATHAN ELFALAN: This thing is just so dialed in.
It has a flawless launch.
It comes on strong.
It doesn't let up.
That corner felt really good to me.
I got on the brakes a little early on purpose,
just to not stress the front tires too much.
And it turned beautifully.
I don't know, this thing just stitches together
a lap with not much effort.
ALISTAIR WEAVER: Yeah.
I was kind of, like, OK, with that one.
You know, I was trying to give it everything under braking
because just to see if I could do something
to catch you and then just be really patient before I
got back on the power.
Because otherwise, it just pushes.
And it lit the rear up a little bit in second gear.
And then the other thing is just that I'm
trying to use the paddles then to change up on the way
back, that you'd got not even close.
And I never got back that 20 yards
I lost off the start line.
OK, let me reunite myself with an old friend.
Here we go.
So I switched to my old friend--
[DING SOUND]
--Edmund's very own Chevy Corvette
that we own and have done a ton of miles in.
I'm going to follow exactly the same procedure as Jonathan
because he had an amazing launch.
So we're in full launch control.
We're going to let the car do its thing.
And given that he won fairly comfortably,
the trick is not to make a mess of it.
We won't make a mess of it, will we?
No, sir.
JONATHAN ELFALAN: So I'm in the M2.
[DING SOUND]
I'm excited to get going in this thing.
Yeah.
I mean, Launch Control, they give you
way too many choices for tailoring your experience here.
But essentially, I'm in all the sporty modes.
You have this BMW-like shift, shift shock,
shift aggression button.
Then you have three volume bars on it.
We want to have that turned all the way up.
Anyways, I'm going to give it a go
and see if I can keep up with that Corvette.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
WOMAN RECORDING: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
[TIRES SCREECHING]
ALISTAIR WEAVER: And away we go.
Come on, Chevy.
JONATHAN ELFALAN: Oh, man.
That Vet launch is so good.
Here we go.
I need to get him on the brakes.
ALISTAIR WEAVER: OK, don't screw up the braking.
[TIRES SCREECHING]
A bit of oversteer.
Bah, oh, yes.
Come to daddy.
This is a great, great, great car.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Woo hoo.
- Ugh.
ALISTAIR WEAVER: What a motor vehicle.
I love this car so much.
You were pretty much with me to the apex.
And then I just got a better exit, and we were away.
JONATHAN ELFALAN: The M2 does have a slight braking
advantage, I feel like.
I got to go deeper into the corner.
And it hammers the brakes.
And it stops with really good confidence.
ALISTAIR WEAVER: Yeah, I felt like you
could be a little bit deeper on the brakes.
But also, just when you get back on the power of this thing,
I got a little bit of oversteer, a little bit of a rear end
slide coming back onto the power.
But it's just so easy to control.
It just feels so good.
It really makes you feel like a hero, this thing.
JONATHAN ELFALAN: I mean, it manages--
it manages that grip so well.
And I think that's what is lacking here,
at least in the Track mode.
Obviously, there are other modes here, like MDM.
But, yeah, you need Launch Control.
And it seems like you can't have it all.
You got to pick one or the other with this car.
ALISTAIR WEAVER: Yeah.
You had got a better launch than me, I think, that time.
But, yeah, I think, to the apex, we were kind of pretty close.
And then I just got a better exit,
which you'd probably expect.
It's weird to think it, but we're sitting here
saying that a new BMW M car feels more crude than a Chevy
Corvette.
And that's awesome.
That's great.
And it's maybe not great for BMW.
But for the job that Chevy's done with this car,
it's fantastic.
NARRATOR: All right, let's see how they did.
0 to 60, the Vette takes it at 3.5 seconds.
In the quarter-mile, the Corvette
takes it again, at 11.6 at 118.4 miles an hour.
[TIRES SCREECHING]
In the corner, the M2 takes the edge, pulling 1.25 G's.
And the winner goes to the Stingray,
with its best time of 34 seconds flat at 127.9 miles an hour.
If you want to see the official UDrags leaderboard,
check out edmunds.com/udrags.
The M2 didn't beat its previous best time,
so it stays put in 13th.
And the Vette couldn't beat its previous best time either,
so it stays in 10th.
ALISTAIR WEAVER: So the Corvette won, and actually, pretty
easily.
JONATHAN ELFALAN: It did.
And that doesn't make the M2 a bad car or a slow car.
It just makes it slower than that thing.
I think you and I both experienced it
where it just introduces too many levels of complexity,
from all the settings that you can change, to the Launch
Control being, like, upshifts, automatically down.
But you got to do it yourself on the way back.
I don't know, I was kind of lost when it came to that.
And a sports car should not make you feel that way.
ALISTAIR WEAVER: And it's also not a particularly nice,
it's not a particularly quick shift.
And you've got eight speeds.
And you constantly feel like you're not
quite in the right gear for the right moment.
I think also, for me, it's the difference between something
that was designed as a kind of mid-engine supercar
and something which, like nearly all M cars,
is a take on a four-seater coupe.
JONATHAN ELFALAN: It is.
ALISTAIR WEAVER: It doesn't feel quite as bespoke
as this Corvette.
And also, you just realize how good that thing is.
JONATHAN ELFALAN: To the M2's credit,
I will say the brakes felt stronger.
I could go deeper into the corner.
ALISTAIR WEAVER: The fact that does
feel a little bit more agile, I agree with you,
you can get a bit harder on the brakes.
And probably because it's small, it feels kind of agile.
But the moment-- like, you were with me
on that run all the way to the apex.
But then just the way the Corvette just pulls out,
it's just beautiful.
JONATHAN ELFALAN: It's so well put together.
I mean, that's winner.
It's so good.
ALISTAIR WEAVER: Clear winner, Germany.
No, America.
[CREW LAUGHS]
Thanks for watching.
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Lisa made the crew laugh--
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