Center-lock, motorsport-style alloy wheels are the must-have accessory for any self-respecting performance car in 2023, and fine as the stock rims on the BMW M2, M3, and M4 are in objective terms, subjectively they’re about as sexy as scuffed hubcaps next to the mono-bolt forged alloys available from BMW M’s Performance Parts program.
Supplied in 19-inch form for the front axle and as a 20-inch wheel for the rear, the rims feature a Y-spoke design, a Jet Black finish, and M Performance branding milled into the outer edge. They add some serious sizzle to the look of the M2 and M3 wagon in these pictures, and so they should. According to BMW Blog they cost €12,000 ($13k) in Europe, but there’s no word on how they might be priced in North America.
BMW claims that the new fixing arrangement has a dynamic benefit because it reduces rotating masses, but does anyone really believe you’re going to notice that difference on a street car? It was normal for sports cars to have wheels with a single fixing in the old days, and they would usually have a hide mallet in the trunk to enable the driver to tighten and loosen the eared spinner. But until Porsche began fitting center-lock wheels to its 911 GT3 a few years back, the technology was mostly restricted to cars built for the race track, where a single hub fixing rather than four or five bolts makes wheel changes much quicker in the pitlane.
Related: BMW M2 Gains More Downforce, Lighter Wheels, And Lowered Suspension By AC Schnitzer
But that’s not relevant on roadgoing M cars because they don’t have a spare wheel, and even if they did you’d never get it swapped at the side of the road because the bolt is tightened to the tune of 686 lb-ft (930 Nm). That’s a ton of twist.
No, it’s all about the pose with these wheels and that’s fine by us. If we had an M2, M3, or M4 and the spare cash, we’d probably spring for them. We might take the weird triangular exhaust system available for the M3 and M4 through the same M Performance parts program, but we’re not sure about all the optional carbon aero goodies fitted to the M2 in these images. Do you think they make it look better or worse than the stock M2 coupe?
H/T to BMW Blog