When I woke up this morning, I fired up my iPad and went about my usual routine of seeing what was going on in the world today. Before I could make it through even half of the usual drama associated with this country’s current political state, I got a message from a buddy overseas saying the facelifted M2 leaked on a Belgian website along with a link back to our friends over at Bimmer Today. Sure enough, the story checks out, but right away I noticed that this facelift will be nothing to write home about. And, in all honesty, is really not even worth mentioning. But I thought maybe one or two of you might like to know what to expect when the 2018 BMW M2 goes on sale and why you’ll probably want to hold off on upgrading to a newer model.

To put things simply, the only changes to be had come in the form of new exterior lights. Up front, the headlights will keep the same shape and form, and even the weird little eyelid at the top of the light, but the LED adaptive lights will now take on a more angular look with clearly defined points that creates a broken hexagonal look. Around back, the only real difference is that the darker area of the taillight lens will now sit flat in the center and the reverse light will now sit at the very bottom of the taillight, toward the lower, inner corner. The reverse light will be a bit thinner and longer than before. This is great and all, but sadly, those are the only changes that you should expect from the 2018 M2, and it’s enough for me to suggest that you wait if you were considering on trading in an updating to a newer model.

Continue reading for the full story.

It Might be Lazy, but it’s Not Surprising

The 2 Series has only been around since 2014 when BMW decided to split the 1 Series into two different model variants. It took a couple of years, but in 2016, BMW released its flagship for the 2 Series line, the M2. So, it’s only been on the market – as of the time of this writing – for a year and a half or so, so it’s really not surprising that BMW isn’t doing much to change up the 2018 model. However, something more than revised exterior lights would be nice. There’s no clear view of the interior, but given the nature of exterior updates, the interior isn’t likely to change outside of getting BMW’s latest iDrive infotainment system. Under the hood, expect to see that 3.0-liter, which will likely continue to push out the current 265 horsepower and 343 pound-feet of torque. BMW could surprise us and tune the engine to deliver just a hair more, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. In 2018, the M2 should still make the same 4.2-second sprint to 60 mph and will naturally top out a 155 mph.

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Left: Facelifted 2018 BMW M2

Right: 2016 BMW M2


Read our full review on the BMW M2 here.