2013 BMW M6 Convertible, your psychographic friend: Motoramic Drives

The epiphany happened on a strip of asphalt deep in central California's Sideways wine country, midway through my week with the new BMW M6 Convertible. Upon delivery, the M6 seemed to be a little too much of everything. Size, design, engine, attitude. Although I'm an unabashed M-car enthusiast and a onetime E46 M3 Cabriolet owner, this M6 at first seemed to be straying from that BMW Motorsports mission of building tactile missiles that would happily ditch the road for a track.

But somewhere along snaking Highway 46, with the topless coupe effortlessly charging through the Coast Range mountains, I came around.

The M6 is the real M-deal, a retort to those Roundel faithful who cried treason when the company slapped a pair of tri-colored M badges on its X5 and X6 sport-utes. Simply put, this M-car is here to reassert the Munich-based marque's claim to sports car fame.

The 2012 M6 Convertible landed in showrooms in June, and in a reverse of typical release protocol will be followed soon by its 2013 coupe counterpart. Our handsome Singapore Grey Metallic over black leather car stickered at a hefty $122,095, which included the worthwhile Driver Assistance Package ($1,900, includes lane departure warning, active blind spot detection and side and top view cameras for even more parking help) and the fairly unavoidable Executive Package ($4,900, includes musts such as smartphone integration as well as useful perks like heads-up speedometer display).

Suffice to say there's a lot of bucking competition in this four-passenger cabrio corral, including head turning machines such as the Maserati Gran Turismo convertible ($136,300) and Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet ($149,000), though admittedly the latter's rear seat occupants need to be tiny. But while the M6's sticker price is breathtaking, living with it for a week makes you realize that a lot is offered in return.

A virtual twin to the latest M5 super-sedan, the tweaked Sixer ditches the grunting V10 of the previous M5 for the new version's silky twin-turbocharged V8 good for 560 hp. That power is managed by a seven-speed dual-clutch auto box which sends 500 ft-lbs of road-ripping torque to the rear wheels. Sure, it's happy to cruise along in full automatic mode, but the real fun kicks in when you select the gear with gentle taps of the paddles mounted behind the thick sport-oriented steering wheel. Although the paddle-shift benchmark could well be the lightning quick version made by Ferrari, both Porsche's PDK and BMW's DCT offer an experience that only a pro hot shoe could criticize.

BMW claims a zero-to-60 time of 4.2 seconds, but honestly this cat feels far quicker than that, especially if you manually dial the car into full race mode with stiffer suspension and steering settings. In fact, a defining feature of the M6 is just how much control the driver has over the car's settings, a contrast to many other manufacturers' "pre-packaged" settings. While getting the car to feel just as you want it is likely to take time, BMW assumes M6 buyers are the type that will happily fiddle for hours.

"One large Sport button is not what our customers want," says Matt Russell, M Brand manager for BMW North America. "They're control freaks, which comes from their successful professional and personal lives, so the M6 is a good psychographic match for them."

Russell says the M6 is "smaller, lower and more sport focused" than the family autobahn-stormer M5, and compared to the 2010 M6 "offers at a very similar price 30 percent more torque, 10 percent more horsepower and 30 percent better mpg," which rings in at 14 mpg and 20 mpg city/highway.

So let's get my principal beef out of the way. I'm not wild on the car's styling. If one can describe the Porsche 911 and Audi R8 as having essentially organic shapes, the M6 -- and indeed all of BMW's line-up -- seems to come more from the paper airplane school of design, bursting with folds and creases to the point where your eye isn't quite sure where to go. Sure, perhaps an improvement over the Chris Bangle flame-design swoops of the early 2000s, but still a bit fussy. The BMW Z8 was organic perfection. Enough said.

As already mentioned, life with M6 started a bit awkward. But the more seat time was logged, the more familiar the machine felt. Its dimensions seemed to shrink, while its capabilities became second nature.

Turn in is crisp at almost any speed, while braking is so confidence-inspiring (six pistons stomping on vented and drilled discs) that you'll seek out even the shortest runway to lower the boom. You instantly appreciate this car's versatility. Dial in the stiff settings and you'll start booking track time. But this is also a car that can seat four adults in comfort for rides of modest duration, fit a decent amount of luggage and take advantage of a sunny day at the touch of a button.

And that's where the epiphany happened -- on a long and winding road out of Denner Vineyards with three other adults in the car, the top down, sun beaming and engine screaming. These days, we're all looking to tick a lot of boxes with whatever we buy, as a struggling economy touts practicality over sheer opulence. The M6 Convertible ticks so many that suddenly a $122,000 two-door actually starts to make sense.