BMW M440i Gran Coupe xDrive road test

We get behind the wheel of the BMW 4 Series Gran Coupe in M440i xDrive guise – the heart-over-head pick of the 4 Series range

Words: Neil Briscoe

Mel Brooks’ 1987 comedy Spaceballs has been curiously influential on the car world. It’s from Spaceballs and its quickfire-gag parodies of Star Wars and Star Trek that Elon Musk pinched the concepts of ‘Ludicrous’ and ‘Plaid’ speed for the Tesla line-up.

It’s also a film that comes instantly into my mind whenever I see one of the new BMW models with their controversial noses. At one point in Spaceballs, an evil plastic surgeon (just go with it…) threatens that he’s going to give the story’s heroine back… her old nose! Cue maniacal laughter.

I wonder if that’s actually a threat when it comes to the new generation of models from BMW, including this, the second generation of 4 Series Gran Coupé. As with the two-door 4 Series Coupé and Convertible, the five-door Gran Coupé gets the new-look BMW kidney grilles, which are tall and narrow instead of the more classical shallow and broad. Would the older, wider nose actually look better than the headline-baiting new look?

Actually, I’m not so sure. A few months ago I’d have said an unthinking ‘yes’ to that question, but the 4 Series Gran Coupé is changing my mind. I’ll grant that the big grille look is still more impactful than it is elegant, but it’s growing on me fast, and there’s a curious tension between modernity and a faint touch of pre-war BMW 328 about the shapes. As with the Bangle designs of the early 2000s, maybe we just need to give it time.

There surely must have been temptation within the Munich boardroom to revert to the old nose for this, the Gran Coupé, because it’s the best-selling 4 Series. Out of the 700,000-odd 4 Series badged cars sold since the model was introduced, half of them have been the Gran Coupé model (the Coupé and the Convertible take a mathematically neat 25 percent each of the rest). BMW is, as it was back with the E60 5 Series and E65 7 Series, being stylistically brave, and counting on 4 Series Gran Coupé buyers being that little bit more daring, possibly that little bit more thrusting in the their tastes.

The rest of the car that lies behind the grille is very handsome, predictably so. The overall shape and silhouette are essentially the same as that of the old 4 Series Gran Coupé, but with the sharp, straight edges of the old model made more gentle, more curved, more rounded off. It’s a shape that has instant appeal, and it looks really neatly balanced.

It’s also a little larger than the outgoing 4 Series Gran Coupé — the new model is 143mm longer (46mm of that is in the wheelbase), 27mm wider and a surprising 53mm taller. Those dimensions mean that the new Gran Coupé is significantly roomier inside than before. That wheelbase is actually 5mm longer than that of a 3 Series saloon, so space in the back seats is fairly good. Rear headroom is fine, and if legroom isn’t quite generous, then it’s certainly on the right side of adequate. The Gran Coupé is also the only 4 Series model that comes with a centre rear seat, which adds to its practicality, although the hefty transmission tunnel means that it’s really only useful for short journeys. Unless you just don’t like the person sitting there…

Further back, the boot has actually shrunk a little — it’s down by ten litres to 470-litres with the seats up, or 1,290-litres with the rear seats folded (they split 40:20:40). That drop in capacity is a bit misleading though — according to BMW, the actual ‘directly viewable’ space in the boot has gone up by 39-litres. The overall fall in volume is more down to the packaging of the underfloor boot space.

The change in dimensions also means that this is a spectacularly aerodynamically efficient car — the 4 Series Gran Coupé has a coefficient of drag of just 0.26, 0.02 lower than the old model and an incredible figure for a car with relatively wide tyres.

Overall weight has actually gone down a fraction, thanks in part to greater use of aluminium in the structure. Our M440i test car, complete with range-topping six-cylinder engine and four-wheel drive, tips the scales at 1,900kg. Hardly light, then, but you can go lighter. A base 420i weighs a more reasonable 1,695kg.

Being as the 4 Series Gran Coupé shares BMW’s CLAR platform with the 3 Series, you won’t be too surprised to hear that the cabin is more or less lifted directly from the Three. There’s nothing wrong with that, to be fair. Basic models in Europe still get standard analogue dials, and an 8.8-inch touchscreen for the iDrive infotainment setup, but our top-spec test car came with the 12.3-inch digital dials that are standard on all UK models, along with the 10.25-inch iDrive screen. Somewhat surprisingly, given that the closely related i4 gets BMW’s latest version 8.0 infotainment software, the 4 Gran Coupé makes do with the older 7.0 system. It’s no great loss — 8.0 is certainly slicker, but 7.0 is pretty easy to use, has suitably expensive looking graphics and built-in tech such as integrated Amazon Alexa (alongside the in-house “Hey, BMW” digital voice assistant), automated parking with a memory function for repeated manoeuvres and live connected services. It’s also set up so that BMW can sell you some functions (auto high-beam lights, for example) after you’ve bought the car.

Ok, enough electronics — let’s get to the engineering. While the 4 Series Gran Coupé does, as mentioned, share more than a little DNA with the all-electric i4, this one has more in the way of old-fashioned mechanical thrust. Yes, you can have a basic 420i, with a fairly unexciting 184hp, or a super-frugal 420d diesel with 190hp, and the potential for an easy-peasy 55mpg on long runs.

Or you could have this: the M440i xDrive. This one has a proper BMW engine, the turbocharged B58 3.0-litre straight-six. Ok, so this is an M Performance model, not a full-on M car, and OK it doesn’t have the full-fat 510hp of the mighty M4 Competition. When, precisely, was 374hp not enough, though? Especially when it’s backed up by a significant 368lb ft of torque that arrives at a lowly 1900rpm and sticks around all the way to 5000rpm – just 500rpm shy of the power peak.

Which might suggest that this is a low-lugger of an engine, especially with its mild-hybrid assistance that helps to eke out a little more fuel economy, almost an American muscle-car unit, which does all its best work at low speeds, making effortless use of the eight-speed automatic gearbox, and all with the stability assurance of xDrive all-wheel drive.
Well, that’s partly true. Certainly, the M440i is a hugely easy-going performance car to drive. Leave it in Comfort or Adaptive modes, leave the Adaptive M suspension (standard on this M440i, but a part of the £2,500 M Sport Pro pack for lesser models) in its softest setting and the M440i just loafs along, with the distant rumble from the straight-six barely audible above the sound of your favourite audiobook. You could happily cross continents in this car in this mode. The front seats, set just fractionally too high up, are wonderfully comfortable and in spite of the low roofline and the shallow, frameless side glass, all round visibility is pretty decent, even if the rear glass is a touch too small for comfort. Refinement is excellent, and the ride quality is firm, but absorbent in a taut kind of way – you know the bumps are there, but you’ll never be upset by them.

However, the roads that run out into the country from BMW’s press garage at Garching near Munich are rather more invigorating if you know where to go. While the M440i impresses with stability at high Autobahn speeds so rock-solid that it would humble Gibraltar, if you head off the A9, and take a few judicious turns, there is enjoyment to be had.

Dial everything up to Sport mode and the M440i begins to come alive. The engine gets louder – yes, some of it is fake noise, fed through the excellent Harmon Kardon stereo, but it’s such a good fake noise you won’t mind – and the chassis tightens up considerably. It’s never stiff enough to become harsh (thank the longer wheelbase in a large part for that), but the M440i becomes far more agile and flickable. A GT it may be in its heart, but there’s a hint of hot hatch in there too, as you dive from one corner apex to the next, with the electric power steering constantly feeding a stream of useful, reassuring information to your palms.

With xDrive you’re unlikely to get the rear end moving around much, which, on lightly slippery public roads is probably a good thing. On track, the story might be different, but then the M440i – nor any 4 Series Gran Coupé – is hardly designed with such things in mind.

BMW M440i Gran Coupe xDrive (G26): our verdict

This is a car in which to throw some luggage and head for a distant horizon. Use the beefy power of the straight-six to annihilate a motorway or two, before enjoying the sheer depths of brilliance of that chassis and steering on the last few, twisty miles to your destination.

Yes, the electric i4 is probably the vision of the future, and yes, a frugal 420d probably makes more sense for most. This M440i, though? It’s a proper BMW. The nose knows.