BMW M Experience as the ultimate selling machine

ABU DHABI – I am wearing a virtual-reality (VR) headset and immersed in a Mario Kart-like game in which I navigate a car around a virtual track. I steer into floating tokens to earn points while trying to avoid or overtake other (virtual) cars.

The plot twist is that I am seated in, and actually piloting, a real-life, 503bhp BMW M4. The howling exhaust note under full-bore acceleration and the tyres’ tortured squeals through every turn are all for real.

Granted, I am chucking the car around a vast, obstacle-free open area, but it is still surreal to be charging about effectively blind in an actual vehicle, trusting fully in VR technology to keep me out of the barriers.

It is all part of the fun at the BMW M Experience held in March at Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina Circuit. The two-day extravaganza is curated by BMW to showcase the latest products and technology from its specialist M division.

The event includes giving participants a preview of innovations such as the aforementioned “mixed-reality” technology, which incorporates VR into the real-world driving experience.

The M Experience is primarily a dealer training and incentive event, aimed at educating, enthralling and inspiring the people who will serve as M-car ambassadors and advocates to potential customers worldwide. But there are some customer slots available, at €5,900 (S$8,550) a head, for this particular event. In all, 99 customers fly into Abu Dhabi for this fiesta, including five from Singapore.

According to Ms Sylvia Neubauer, BMW M’s vice-president of customer, brand and sales, such driving events, where car and driver are safely pushed to their limits, are the best kind of test-drive opportunities.

The company typically sees 20 per cent of participants buying an M car within the next 12 months, and the figure can rise to as high as 50 per cent for more exclusive events.

Ms Preeti Gupta, BMW Asia’s corporate affairs director, says those keen to know more about such driving experience events can contact the brand’s two dealers – Performance Motors and BMW Eurokars Auto – in Singapore. Dealers can also invite customers to the event.

For the event at Yas Marina, activities away from the M cars include being whisked via speedboat for a hair-raising joyride around Abu Dhabi’s Yas Bay and Al Raha Creek before being deposited at our restaurant for lunch.

And that night, we dine under the stars as the Yas Marina track is turned into a spectacular open-air dining venue, with our tables set up on the main straight itself.

The rest of our time comprises more conventional, but no less thrilling, driving experiences.

We get to repeatedly drag-race BMW XMs down a 400m strip. The huge, 2.7-tonne sport utility vehicles astound not just with their rocket-like thrust, but also their immense appetite for such abuse. Each participant does over 10 full-bore sprints almost non-stop, yet there is no smoke, burning smell or overheating by the end.

The highlight, though, is the buffet spread of all the latest M cars. I take the opportunity to gorge myself on countless laps in the M5 Touring, the M3 Touring and the recently facelifted M2.

Naturally, they are all fabulous around the fast, challenging circuit, with searing straight-line pace and tremendous grip through the twisty bits.

But driving them back-to-back reveals that each has a distinctly different character – ranging from playful and effervescent to hardcore and serious – while all displaying the same underlying performance-driven philosophy and deep commitment to driver enjoyment that has always been an M-car hallmark.

For me, it is clear that BMW’s M still stands for magic.