Whispers subtly bouncing around school hallways, suggestive gossip in alleyways – there are rumours abound stating Wales is no longer the driving mecca we know, with speed cameras and police presence ending the pilgrimage – I sacrifice myself by driving out to find out.
It’s been a few good years since I was last in Wales with my last trip back in May 2018 in the R8, which despite being a fantastic drive out, didn’t quite hit the spot as well as my excursion back in July 2014 in the 997 GTS.
Two days planned across 500 miles, a Monday and Tuesday with huge thanks to James for the route planning which was no small feat given the diversity and variety of different roads and locations that ultimately contributed to the best Wales drive ever. I could end this post now, but those two readers of this blog will be utterly disappointed.
The curiosity around this particular trip was the choice of cars. As a late addition to the party of five already committed to this trip, I was ultimately joining a group of three Yaris GR owners who had recently purchased their cars and wanted to take them to the one place that would truly test their resolve – the home of the British RAC rally, deep in Wales. Consequently, the 720s was out of the question and the M2 Competition was prepared for the 2 day, 20 leg recce.
I chose to drive up the night before so as to get a relatively full night of sleep which is always a fallacy with sleep never coming in a strange, budget hotel, but I was glad to have avoided the morning traffic on a Monday by coming up instead on a Sunday evening. As I left the house, I closed the garage door on my 720s, waves of intense FOMO hitting me one after another, curiously wondering if I was going to regret the decision to bring the M2 instead. There is absolutely no doubt as to whether I made the right decision but more on that later.
Monday morning and six cars are sat in the car park ready to go. We use the ABRP app to plan the route. The only reason we use this is because it’s one of the only navigation apps that allows you to plan a route that it doesn’t deviate from, meaning a group of drivers always remain committed to routes even in the presence of traffic or accidents. Unfortunately despite this premise, it’s unreliable, poorly designed with terrible UX and frequent crashes. Having the app randomly forget the entire route mid-journey was extraordinarily frustrating especially whilst leading the convoy. Oh and you have to pay £5 to use it on carplay which frankly made no sense. It was a combination of this app, used in conjunction with Google and Apple maps that essentially allowed us to (mostly) remain on track.
Toyota Yaris GR 1 – standard
Toyota Yaris GR 2 – modified suspension and exhaust
Toyota Yaris GR 3 – modified suspension and exhaust
BMW M2 Competition
Mercedes AMG GTR
Porsche 991,1 GT3 RS
After a short period of traffic and roadworks coming out of Chepstow, we began what was essentially two days of rallying across some of the most incredible roads I’ve ever seen. I know I’ve said this before about other areas, so please forgive the repeated waxing lyrical of experiences, but I am an easily pleased flawed human being who takes either immense delight or much disappointment with very little moderation in the middle and Wales is just a magical place of intense, emotionally crippling beauty. To add, it is blindingly clear that whoever is chief road planner in Wales is an absolute petrol head, such are the broad strokes of his black brush as he painted the roads across this divine countryside.
From Lord of the Rings, to Game of Thrones, there are a plethora of movies that could comfortably be placed within the vast collection of vistas we witnessed and they would not be out of place. From deep valleys racing amongst a dried river bed, to vast mountain pass drops, and tree lined narrow country lanes to wide, sweeping, rollercoaster A roads, these are genuinely true tests for any cars.
And it didn’t take long to realise how unsuited some of the cars were to parts of these roads. Where the AMG GTR and the 991 GT3 RS were gloriously competent and dominant on the fast, sweeping A roads, they quickly became unstuck, with aggressive camber creating a peaked spine in middle of roads, to frequent dips and potholes causing any low cars to regularly bottom out.
But my god what machines. The AMG GTR looks utterly menacing and was hounding my rear with malicious intent. It has a design that should not have ever gone past concept stage with today’s hampering of creative license. Add to that a stupid powerplant that can change Earth’s gravity on a whim and a soundtrack to force young children into a therapist’s couch, there’s no other car I’d rather have at that price point. It’s also difficult to convey just how fantastic the matt paintwork is suited to this car and seeing it bob and weave on sweeping chicanes and dipping from one switch back to the next was one of the most awesome things I’ve ever seen in motoring.
Meanwhile the GT3 RS is unapologetic in its intent as a pure, focused, grown child’s trinket. Resplendent in purple you’d think it was trying hard, with its adornment of massive spoilers, gigantic wheels with zero margin between them and the arches and a front skirt designed to live only on a race track – but no. None of this is for show. It is scalpel sharp, obsessively focused and the adornments serve only to intimidate in a way a gangster can walk into a restaurant with weapons in hand. There’s so much to school us all in the way it carries itself over bump and camber but the thing that stands out even more than the lairy colour scheme is the noise it makes. GT3s are always cheeky in that they release a very unique sound at full throttle between 3-4000 RPM. It is a deep, guttural snarl that makes no bones about its intention and you can hear it miles away and any time I was behind it, this soundnote was thrown from cliff face to valley as it echoed infinitely through our bodies. Oh and never ever follow an RS unless you want a new paint job. Those tyres are basically industrial vacuum cleaners that use any following car as their collection bags.
Of course, these bullies made light work in dispatching the runts of the litter on the faster, more open roads, but they were without doubt compromised in other areas and this is where the others came into their own.
The Yaris’ were quite obviously in their absolute element and at home in WRC territory with their short bodies with tiny overhangs, 4WD and 1.3l turbocharged four three pot (thanks for the correction) engines making absolute mince meat of anything Wales could throw at them. Watching them dance around in their homeland made for beguiling spectating as they darted from switchback to chicane, dancing on sixpence whilst refusing to their very last breath to let go of any tarmac those tiny tyres were grabbing onto for dear life. Following Anis’ car for many a mile was a fascinating insight into the behaviour of the undercarriage as the Yaris’ made light work of absolutely any road surface, camber or direction you could throw at it. No fuss is how I’d best describe it and it was impressively competent. And they are super quick where it matters, with some of them giving me actual problems in keeping up as they threw them deep into corners with utter abandonment. I still prefer them in black though.
Anyway, enough of you let’s talk about me for a bit. Where the giant slayers got stuck, the M2 became a nimble dart. Where the Yaris’ ran out of steam, the M2 powered through with its surplus of 150BHP. Until this trip, I really liked the M2 Competition but I’ve remained vocal on its shortcomings and this, in retrospect, was a harsh and premature judgement. After this trip I have become utterly enamoured by the thing and think as I may, I am unable to come up with any other car I’d rather have had on this trip, save for one (see end of article).
It was supremely competent and fed me with so much confidence I became less concerned over what the car could do and instead remained focused on what I wanted it to do. Despite currently rocking a set of very poor Michelin Pilot Super Sport tyres, the M2 rides that fine line of balance, encouraging you to wonder casually over the line periodically to either directly placing the car on to a focused line of attack, to a more courageous (and sometimes faster) casual approach where all four tyres are skating over the surface seemingly out of grip yet totally under control within a benign, communicative chassis that absolutely lives to slide around on all four tyres.
I don’t recall having this much fun for as long as I can remember (probably my Focus RS is the last time I had a similar experience) and despite the allure of bigger, faster, more exotic machinery persistently taking headlines I can’t help but feel I’ve been schooled on the pure essence of motoring. Had I brought the 720s on this trip I would no doubt have incurred some damage to the undertray or front skirts at best, or thrown the whole car into a ditch at worst. It would have been utterly out of its depth in an environment suited to small, lithe machines where powering on at 9/10ths is infinitely more fun than a vastly more powerful car at 5/10ths.
Switching everything into Sport Plus (steering become stiffer, engine response improves and gears are held on for longer) the car presents itself perfectly as a tool that isn’t necessarily the fastest point to point car out there, but one that will certainly give you endless smiles. And you simply don’t expect this throttle response in a turbocharged car as we’ve all been taught to believe that turbocharging is bad but let’s not forget the world of rallying has actually been dominated for decades by forced induction, so it’s no surprise to learn that this any-gear-torque is most advantageous in a-to-b road conditions.
Welsh countryside roads are notorious for violent changes to camber, road surface and general layout and the M2 absorbed everything in its stride as it floated effortlessly from one chicane to the next and being able to enjoy some of the finest roads on the planet in a car that was seemingly built for it was a privilege that has re-written what my standards are for the perfect car.
There was an inspired level of confidence in the car. It was always on your side to the point where it would even warn you plenty in advance if it felt you were overstepping its boundaries which were, to be fair, few and far between. Mostly though, it would frequently whisper in your ear to press on and the more you leaned into it the more it would reward your faith. Grip once tyres are warm is sufficient, but not total which meant you could easily break traction when you wanted to and these low speed, low risk moments of both power and lift-off oversteer are so utterly joyous you can’t help but yelp little shrieks of delight each time you do them.
After nearly 500 miles of pure, unadulterated bliss, the journey home was a typically pleasant experience with the BMW feeling perfectly suited again for a gentle cruise 150 miles back down the M4 with all settings in comfort mode and the DCT box doing all the work, and as I came eventually back into the confines of a claustrophobic, dictatorial London I was greeted with the familiar sight of endless roadworks, average speed cameras and roads sacrificed by drivers to cyclists. It was a stark reminder of the joys to experience away from the hubris of London.
Claims of a Welsh lockdown by motorist hating constabularies are wildly inaccurate. We did not see a single policeman and the only speed enforcement we witnessed was a short range of average speed cameras on a single stretch of motorway. Instead, what we experienced was god’s country in grand epic scale with a bunch of incredible people who are equally evangelical about cars as I am, in a car I was absolutely enamoured by. I’m really glad that I couldn’t do my upgrades in time on the M2 as instead, I’m now looking to upgrade the car to the M2 CS such was the incredible breadth of capabilities I enjoyed on the M2 Competition on yet another trip that will be burned forever into my memory banks.
Thank you to Anis for organising the trip, James for planning the routes and Durgesh for the better photos on this post.
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