It’s crucial to celebrate and reward Sports/Performance models: no great car can exist without plenty of passion from designers and engineers, but this category is where it’s all distilled down to its purest form.
And don’t forget an enthusiast car doesn’t have to be totally impractical. As with previous COTY years, there’s a surprisingly broad range of machines represented here: one’s a practical family SUV with electric power, another’s a traditional sedan. Even the coupe has back seats and a decent boot!
Although, of course, all also have something very special to offer in terms of powertrain and chassis dynamics. The point of this category is to be a little selfish: these cars are about entertaining the driver first, everything else second.
BMW M2
BMW is one of the more forward-looking brands when it comes to electrified technology and polarising design. But the heritage (some might say essence) of its genuine M models lies in straight-six engines and rear-drive, and you can still have that in its purest form with the M2.
At $146,500, this is the entry point to the full M models. The 338kW 3.0-litre engine (shared with the M3/4 and BMW’s customer racing cars) is throaty and you can even have a 6-speed manual transmission; the 8-speed automatic is the same price, so the choice is yours. The automatic is faster, but the manual delivers purist control and thrills.
It’s based on the M3/M4 platform, so the M2 has grown in size and weight in its latest incarnation. But it remains a brilliantly balanced driver’s car and as is proper for an M-car, it’s crying out for track time with multiple drive modes and even a drift-friendly M Traction Control system with M Drift Analyser.
HYUNDAI IONIQ 5 N
The Ioniq 5 N is a landmark car not just for Hyundai, but also EVs in general. The company’s N division (the equivalent of BMW M or Mercedes-AMG) has taken the Ioniq 5 family EV-SUV and thoroughly reworked it into a unique high-performance model.
It has more power (up to 478kW) and a redesigned chassis. It’s crazy fast of course, with 0-100km/h in 3.4 seconds. But key to the Ioniq 5 N’s real appeal is a multitude of drive-mode options that cater to road or track use and completely new features such as N e-Shift, which gives a pretty accurate representation of the soundtrack and sensations of a high-performance petrol car with a conventional transmission. It’s not just fake noise, either: the system communicates with the e-motors, meaning the “gears” have a direct effect on performance.
The Ioniq 5 N is whatever you want it to be: a quiet, practical eco-friendly SUV for the family or a drift-happy track monster for the weekends. There’s nothing else quite like it.
MERCEDES-AMG C 63 S PERFORMANCE
Yes, that’s right: the latest $199,900 Mercedes-AMG C 63 is a four-cylinder hybrid. After a long and illustrious history of V8 power, that’s enough for some to write it off and move on.
For the rest of us, the new model is an epic machine, a technological triumph and arguably the most extreme car ever to wear the “C 63” badge. The powertrain is a plug-in hybrid and while it does indeed have some eco-credentials (the tiny 6.1kWh battery provides 13km of EV running), it’s mainly about providing outrageous performance.
Peak power is a staggering 500kW, made up of 350kW from the turbo-four and another 150kW from the electric motor; to put that in context, the previous twin-turbo V8 C 63 made 375kW. Even if you don’t plug it in, the battery is aggressively recharged by the petrol engine to make sure you have as much performance on tap as possible, as much of the time as possible.