Watch: BMW M2 v Porsche 718 Cayman S

Which sub-£50k sports coupe delivers the most fun?

Car enthusiasts can’t get enough of the BMW M2. The six-cylinder turbo rocketship oozes attitude, goes like stink and costs less than £45,000. Chuck in a brilliant engine note to create a car dripping in desirability – a proper return to form for the small, relatively affordable BMW performance car.

But car enthusiasts also can’t get enough of the Porsche 718 Cayman. That’s for slightly different reasons. It too costs less than £50,000. It too also performs brilliantly. A more convincing junior 911 would be hard to imagine. There’s just one problem. It has a four-cylinder turbo engine instead of a six-cylinder. And this is something about which enthusiasts have, to put it mildly, not been wholly convinced.

Because we’ve already reviewed them and readers made each piece our first and second most-popular road tests of the year, we decided to bring them together at the tight and twisty Blyton Park circuit, to see how they matched up. Dan’s in the Porsche and Matt’s in the BMW. Each of them has already rated the car they’re driving as the best drive of the year just past. Each of them has pride at stake.

Which aces it – a four-cylinder Porsche that thinks it’s a 911, or a six-cylinder BMW that thinks it’s a genuine M-car? Will one of the boys end up swallowing their pride as the other one howls into the victorious distance? Sit back and watch to find out…

Rob Adams is a writer for PistonHeads.