It suits a couple spending a weekend away from Prague, or a lone driver on a business trip with an overnight stay. There are two M8s in the Masons car hire fleet, and this is the green one. Unlike the SUVs and saloons we offer, the M8 Coupé is built around two people and their luggage. The rear seats are for short hops only.

What the M8 Coupé is good for

The most common plan is an Alpine weekend for two. You leave Prague after lunch on Friday, reach Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the evening, spend Saturday at Lake Eibsee or up on the Zugspitze and head back on Sunday afternoon. Two medium-sized suitcases and a bag with hiking boots go in the boot, while jackets and small items travel on the rear seats. In autumn and winter the all-wheel drive is a real help.

The second plan is work: a conference in Munich or another German city with one night in a hotel. You travel alone or with a colleague, your jacket hangs in the back and your bag is small. The car spends the night in the hotel garage, and in the morning you drive on or head home, with no timetables or train changes.

The third reason is the long drive itself. Some people take the M8 because they want to cover hundreds of kilometres at a calm, even pace and arrive rested. The head-up display puts speed and navigation directly in your line of sight, your phone connects via Apple CarPlay, and dual-zone climate control lets the passenger set their own temperature.

In practice: seats, luggage and drive

Up front there are two M sports seats with electric adjustment; in the back, two smaller seats. An adult fits there for a trip across town to a restaurant, but on the motorway the space is better used for bags or children. There are only two doors and they are long: you reach the rear by tipping a front seat forward, and in a narrow bay they need opening with care. The boot has a classic coupé lid and works best with soft bags and medium-sized suitcases.

M xDrive splits power between both axles, which keeps things calm when pulling away in rain or snow and on a slippery garage exit ramp. The car is long and wide. Prague's blue zones allow limited paid visitor parking; check the sign and time limit and pay online. For longer stays, choose a suitable garage or P+R car park. A rear-view camera and parking sensors help when reversing. The M8 Coupé runs on petrol and, according to fleet data, uses 10.7 l/100 km. Brisk motorway driving with a full boot will push that up, so plan one fuel stop on the way to the Alps.

Where to take the M8 Coupé from Prague

Garmisch-Partenkirchen at the foot of the Zugspitze is about five hours from Prague: the D5 via Rozvadov into Germany, on through Munich and then the A95 all the way to the mountains. Most of the trip is motorway, where the comfortable seats pay off; on the final mountain stretch the all-wheel drive does, as it can be raining or snowing there while Prague is dry. Break the journey in Murnau am Staffelsee, a small lakeside town where you can eat and stretch your legs. In Garmisch, walk past the painted houses on Ludwigstraße, drive out to Lake Eibsee below the Zugspitze and walk through the Partnach Gorge (Partnachklamm) by the Olympic ski jump. Agree the trip to Germany with the manager in advance; you do not need a motorway vignette there for a passenger car.

M8 Coupé or BMW M8 Competition?

Masons has two BMW M8s, and both are 2+2 coupés with M xDrive. This one is green; the other is grey and dates from 2022. So you are not choosing between different hardware: both are for two people with luggage on a long route. We see the green M8 Coupé as the Alps car and the grey M8 Competition as the one for a big-city trip such as Berlin, but either will do both. The deciding factors are colour and which one is free on your dates. If you need to carry two adults in the back for the whole journey, neither is right – choose a saloon or an SUV.