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RE: 2026 BMW M240i xDrive vs. Ford Mustang GT

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2026 BMW M240i xDrive vs. Ford Mustang GT

BMW's junior muscle car meets the real thing - is it any contest?

We all know that true coupes are conspicuous by their absence from today’s new car market. You’ll search in vain for a properly driver-centric two-door, while being bombarded by SUVs missing a rear wiper claiming coupe kudos. It’s a pity, for sure, made worse by the fact that the situation doesn’t look like changing anytime soon. Because niche sellers on bespoke (or at least heavily modified) platforms aren’t exactly dish of the day in these straitened times. Fingers crossed the Celica rumours come good...

Hope does exist, though, for those who want two doors, four seats, a big engine up front and a healthy dollop of attitude. Ever since its introduction to the UK more than a decade ago, the Ford Mustang - first as the S550 generation, now as the S650 for the past few years - has proven an absolute tonic. As the industry generally and Ford specifically abstained from fun, so the Mustang has both reminded us of the old-school charm that’s innate to 5.0-litre coupes - and evolved with the times as well.

Cars like the Bullitt and Mach 1 usefully improved the previous version, and the latest began from an even better starting point to become the superb Dark Horse. This GT plonks two iPads in front of the driver, offers all sorts of telemetry options and will even let you look at digital dials akin to the '60s original - yet the gimmicks aren’t at the expense of actual development. This is a better Mustang GT than before, it requires no special favours to acquire, and can be bought with a manual gearbox and just 26 miles on the clock in the classifieds from £47k. So maybe things aren’t quite so bad - the coupe choice is limited, though not without talent.

The BMW M240i xDrive further validates the narrow argument, despite being a pretty different prospect to the first M Performance 2 Series that arrived a year or so before the Mustang. That car was old-school BMW for the mid-2010s, a two-door saloon with a rasping straight-six up front, a standard six-speed 'box and drive unapologetically sent to the rear wheels. It never really had a direct rival, while offering up a compelling alternative to some more conventional sports cars. Used values reflect its cult status. And while the Mustang’s evolution deferred to the heritage, time waits for no M car in the inexorable BMW product churn.

So in 2021 it was out with the rear-drive, the manual option and even the convertible (won’t anybody think of the recruiters?), in with the chunkier 3 Series CLAR architecture, xDrive and the eight-speed auto. Though it appeared another nail in the Ultimate Driving Machine coffin (as well as a much weirder 2 Series), the reality was undeniably impressive: fast, sophisticated, capable, engaging and efficient.

Not obviously a foil for a Mustang, then, which has always traded on a certain warts-and-all swagger, but more links these two than just being the final pair at the last chance saloon for coupes (if that’s not mixing metaphors too far). Look at the stats: just six (!) kilos separate them at the kerb, torque of the turbo straight six is equal to more than 300 cubic inches of Detroit V8, and the as-tested price of the BMW - so one indicative of how many will be specced - is barely £1,000 less than the Mustang’s RRP. Patently two very different takes on the coupe, but it’s hard not to be intrigued by the match-up.

Well, that’s the idea at least, right up until spending more than five minutes in the company of a Ford Mustang. That’s all that’s needed to fall almost completely under its spell, totally beguiled by the unliveried stock car look and the cold start holler. It’s easier to turn off the traction control in a Ford Mustang than it is the lane keep, and only too easy to embrace a sweetly judged partnership of throttle pedal and rear axle. The gurgles, rumbles and burps of that iconic V8 have always been a USP, yet there’s undoubtedly depth to the Mustang package also.

Certainly its charm offensive remains undimmed in the presence of a white-over-cream M240i. Despite not being very much different to the pre-LCI G42 (or the previous 2 Series, for those that don’t speak BMW), it’s somehow still worse. Why are there even more M badges? Why have the nice Cerium Grey accents gone? Who thought those wheels were acceptable? And so on. Disappointingly, as is so often the case with a modern M car, the M240 is a car you’ll learn to like despite how it looks. Or the very opposite of the Mustang’s kerb appeal, basically.

The BMW’s interior is much more impressive, at least. It too melds a pair of screens to make one panorama of the dash and infotainment display, but with a much more sophisticated appearance, crisper displays and better responsiveness. With the iDrive controller for added functionality, a feature the Mustang sorely misses. Every touchpoint is nicer, every button more satisfying to press and every feature better integrated in the BMW. Which will probably come as a surprise to no one, of course. A new BMW looks a bit weird and has a swisher interior than a Mustang - who’d have thought…

The virtues of both the BMW B58 and Ford Coyote have been extolled at length for more than a decade now, though it’s seldom that the two are driven together at the same time. So the praise can begin all over again. What were impressive engines a few years back are now standout powertrains; freshly hybridised for the 2 Series, the 3.0-litre turbo six now has virtually no lag to speak of, while also singing for 7,000rpm like a naturally aspirated engine. It has the mid-range welly of a much larger, atmospheric unit and, though enhanced, a smooth, cultured sound to remind you why an inline six was always so special.

Just not as special as a V8. Granted, the reality of more than 15 mpg (and 100g/km!) difference is extremely hard to ignore for comparable performance - the BMW often feels sprightlier in give and take driving - but the theatre of a 5.0-litre engine in 2026 is totally captivating. Maybe you’d walk more and drive less to offset the cost; maybe that gym membership isn’t being used enough, so could be cancelled. Whatever, once you’ve experienced this Mustang V8 snarl and bellow through its 7,500 revs, power building and building all the time to a rollicking crescendo, it’s hard to countenance an existence without it. Every aspect that’s so cherished about a V8 - the torque, the feel, the sound - is here in droves.

But please, unless there’s a physical or legal impediment to getting the manual, don’t buy the automatic. It just isn’t good enough, and ruthlessly exposed by the slick, swift, silky BMW transmission. There are 10 ratios, for one thing, which is too many; as with dwarves, deadly sins and Fast and Furious films, somewhere around seven feels like a good count for a modern torque converter. It’s hard to keep track beyond that. You’ll get RSI flapping through the paddles to get the desired ratio, or the gearbox mimics a CVT, slurring and whirring through a middle order that falls like an England batting lineup.

There are too many ratios too close together, which makes kickdown indecisive; neither the gearknob nor the paddles are nice to use, and it’s actually worse on CO2 than the manual. All for a car that could make do with five speeds, not twice that. The BMW, on the other hand, delivers total smoothness around town and manual changes as fast as you’re ever going to need. Honestly, in this package, you miss a BMW manual about as much as getting cash out for a takeaway; the extra effort just wouldn’t be worth it.

The whole package is so cohesive and complete that interrupting its flow with your imperfect gearchanging - to say nothing of spoiling the interior layout - would feel like an aberration more than anything else. And that’s from someone who likes BMW manuals enough to buy the ugliest one ever made. Much has been made of the new generation of BMW coupes, how they’ve managed to be so much heavier yet so much better controlled, and nothing demonstrates that fact quite like a back-to-back with a Mustang. Even on optional Magneride dampers (and with those comparable kerbweights, remember), the Ford can’t match the BMW when it comes to tackling a challenging road.

Where one white car is level, flat and composed, the other white car is heaving, lurching and flustered; not to an unreasonable degree, sure, but sufficiently so for driver confidence (and enjoyment) to be tangibly higher in the M240i. You can have faith that inputs will manifest as the desired action that never quite materialises in the vaguer Mustang; because it’s always more approximate, there’s never the same desire to push on. Steering, never a strong suit of Mustangs, remains as arcade in feel as the animations on screen. The BMW, on the other hand, soon has the driver revelling in a crisp front end, an xDrive that perfectly (yet imperceptibly) shoves power around, and damping quality that would make the first F22 era M240is of a decade ago weep. BMW most certainly still knows how to make a straight-six coupe that’s great to drive; just a shame that neither the size nor the price is very junior anymore.

Will a Mustang driver, trailing behind in a less comfortable, less capable coupe, care very much? Probably not. Perhaps it isn’t the last word in driver engagement, though it’s sorted enough not to feel overawed by that mighty V8. And, truth be told, a car that can worm its way into your affections at whole lot less than ten tenths feels ideal for Britain in 2026. There isn’t a journey that the Mustang vibe won’t improve, and that should count for a lot.

Probably the biggest issue for it is the existence (and experience of) the Dark Horse. That too can do muscle car moodiness and ain’t–no-replacement vigour, but with real reward on offer as well. Whereas the M240 is sufficiently adept to make you question the need for an M2, especially as that now has its own xDrive option (and look at the M3 for proof of where that ends up). As an everyday performance car that isn’t at the track every weekend, its array of talents might be more persuasive.

Which means it’s undoubtedly the objectively superior coupe of this duo, and will probably continue as something of an overlooked gem in the BMW range; not as affordable as B58-engined 2 Series used to be, not as lairy as an M2 and so on. But if you know, you know. The Mustang is far from disgraced, though, being more capable than needed and even more likeable than expected. Or even remembered, for that matter. The coupe market might be severely depleted, but that certainly doesn’t mean great cars no longer exist.

SPECIFICATION | FORD MUSTANG GT

Engine: 5,038cc, V8
Transmission: 10-speed auto, rear-wheel drive
Power (hp): 446@7,000rpm
Torque (lb ft): 398@4,600rpm
0-62mph: 4.9sec
Top speed: 155mph
Weight: 1,836kg
MPG: 23.5
CO2: 274g/km
Price: £58,470 (price as standard; price as tested £64,820, comprising MagneRide damping with Pothole Mitigation for £1,750, Recaro Seats for £2,000, Red Calipers for £400)

SPECIFICATION| BMW M240i xDRIVE (LCI)

Engine: 2,998cc, straight-six, turbocharged, mild-hybrid
Transmission: 8-speed automatic, four-wheel drive
Power (hp): 392
Torque (lb ft): 398
0-62mph: 4.3secs
Top speed: 155mph
Weight: 1,830kg
MPG: 38.7 (WLTP)
CO2: 167g/km
Price: £50,215 (as tested £57,307)

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CH3NO2

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107 months