Video: 2015 Performance Coupe Challenge

Acceleration, braking, steering, road holding, overall dynamics. Let's take a look at how they did. What I love about the M4 is just how dedicated and experienced it is. Everything is just so tightly tuned, steering, the suspension, the throttle. Its just an overall package that works so great. On the track, the engine especially. It doesn't matter where you are coming out of a corner, there's just a ton of power and torque to pull you through and you just rock it off the corner. The BMW continues to be the benchmark in its class for a reason. You get out on the track, there's no learning curve, no get to know you phase. You start hammering right away, and the car plays along. Brakes are phenomenal, the transmission works well. Plenty of power coming off of corners. By far the most fun here. The BMW M4 is a great all around car. I really appreciate the amount of torque that it has. Great acceleration off the line and you know up to really high speeds. But there were some downsides as well. Um I was really disappointed in the performance of the automatic transmission in its automatic modes. On the track it just never seemed to be in the right gear. It would shift while you were in a turn when you didn't want I to Uh, I ended up going to manual mode and just shifting for myself We're not a big fan of on the M4 is its exhaust node. It's not the most pleasant sounding engine. Even among these three it's pretty weak. It sounds like an economy four cylinder engine. On the inside it sounds great cause of the augmented sounds coming in through the stereo. But roll down the windows and it's just not the greatest sounding engine. The ATSV offers very good steering feel and its chassis is also very communicative. You always know where the limit is and when you're getting close to it. Our ATSV had the manual transmission and for manuals, it's pretty good. We actually like the no life shift feature where you keep your foot planted on the gas and just to go to the next gear. And considering it only had six gears when some of the other cars here had seven or eight. It seemed like it was always in the right gear at the right time. The ratios were well matched for this particular track. The ATSV is just this close to being as dedicated as the M4. Steering is a little soft and the suspension is a little soft compared to with the M4, but the fact it's just that close is great. Especially for the value equation the ATSV. The RCV has a higher curve weight than the other cars, which you feel. And it also has less torque which you certainly feel given the extra weight. The automatic transmission we were all a little disappointed in its performance on the street where it had some hesitation. I think in it's most aggressive mode on the track it worked quite well. Definitely better than it did on the street but no the best you can get. RCF-V8 is the best sounding engine out of the bunch here. It just has this grody high revving aggressive growl that is much more of an entertaining experience than the turbo charged six cylinders from the other cars. The RCF felt a little over-matched for this track there was under steer that the other cars didn't exhibit. Uh it was hard to drive through the corners smoothly and it just didn't have the power coming out of the corners that the other ones did. Being a red-blooded possibly redneck American I really want to love the RCF with that big V8 but it falls a little short here compared to the others, I really gotta get the revs up on the V8 to get any power out of it. Handling is not quite as good, it feels good initially but the more laps you get in, the harder you start pushing. It doesn't quite hang with the rest of these cars, but it's a great first effort. Really want to see where Lexus takes it from here. For more details on the day's results check out the performance coupe challenge at Cars.com