Today’s AWD drag race is brought to you courtesy of the guys from Throttle House. And no your eyes don’t deceive you, the title of this article does indeed mention BMW’s M4 Competition; in Xdrive guise. The M4 (and M3) have, of late suffered from a simple albeit fun problem. No, not the beaver teeth, rather traction on launch. For all the power and technology that BMW gave the M4, it really struggled to put the power down; add any amount of moisture to the surface and you most likely eventually leave in a cloud of smoke. It should come as no surprise then that the M4 would get the All-wheel-drive treatment.
More Traction = More Speed
xDrive has already been proven to make the already bonkers M5 and M8 faster than they ever need to be on the public roads. The real party piece of the system is the ability to decouple the front wheels and retain the rear-wheel-drive drift happy nature BMW’s are known for. The RS5 Quattro is the M4’s most direct competitor. However, it’s not an ordinary M4 in this awd drag race rather the higher specified M4 Competition. This leaves the RS5 outgunned by 60hp and 50Nm of torque. Our third competitor is the Nissan GTR. It’s mostly stock save for the Akrapovic exhaust. Once the king of the launch, we get to see how far its competitors have come since it came onto the market over a decade ago. The GTR is comfortably the most powerful of the group, and with a torque figure that sits neatly between the BMW & the Audi’s.
The all-wheel-drive nature of the drag race shows us just how well the launch control systems send over 500hp to the ground. The roll races are more a test of the raw power of the trio. And not to spoil the surprise, but James also has a very special fourth competitor join the party.
