[Auto] BMW M4 CSL review

[Agent47]

 

 

BMW’s M Division is returning to its roots rather fittingly with this, its 50th anniversary present to its diehard fans: the new BMW M4 CSL. The company is offering another headline new product in this its big birthday year but, as you might have read elsewhere, it’s a curious plug-in hybrid SUV that, for reasons unfathomable to many of us, appears to have been named after a Citroen. The reasons that the BMW XM exists at all aren’t so hard to fathom, of course; but the CSL is the real party piece - not least because it’s a CSL.

BMW’s Motorsport division was founded in 1972 in order to better run its parent company’s competition efforts (if you don’t know how it happened, our own Richard Lane’s BMW M anniversary drive story is well worth a read). And its first road car was actually the memorably wild-looking homologation version of the ‘E9’ coupe: the ‘Batmobile’ 3.0 CSL.Those three letters - which stand for ‘Competition Sport Lightweight’ - hold the most special of statuses for Munich. They have only been used on one other road-going BMW since the ‘E9’: the celebrated ‘E46’ M3 CSL of 2004, which plenty still hail as the greatest BMW M car there has yet been. And so, while limited-run M3s and M4s have used other model identities over the decades, from CRT to GTS and even GTR in a few cases, we can safely assume that this one must be an exceptional prospect. You don’t blow nearly twenty years of dust off an iconic nameplate without being sure that you’re going to deploy it properly.

Before we move on, then, let’s reflect on how the more rarefied end of the market for German performance cars has changed since the ‘E46’ CSL of 2004. That was BMW’s first road-going M car to get a semi-slick ‘cup’ tyre, you may remember. The first with a weight-saving roof made out of carbon-fibre-reinforced plastic, too. It jettisoned its sound insulation, factory navigation- and stereo systems, air conditioning, electric front seats and its occasional rear ones; and it ended up 110kg lighter than the M3 Coupe on which it was based. The new CSL is 100kg lighter than its series-production equivalent, while retaining niceties such as air con, a stereo and an infotainment system. Because, as companies like BMW have gradually learned over the decades, even the wealthiest and most enthusiastic petrolheads like performance cars that they can actually use.

The M3 CSL was priced from a whisker over £58,000 when it came to market in 2004: a figure which will sound incredibly reasonable when you consider that this new M4 CSL has a showroom price of just under £130k in 2022 (correct the former for eighteen years of inflation and it comes out at about £90k; so that’s a big price hike even in real terms).BMW is clearly aiming high with this new ultimate M car, then - and, if it hits its target market dead centre, it will in turn become extra-profitable for the M Division, and worth the outlay for the lucky one hundred UK owners who’ll reap the rewards of a car whose reputation far outstrips its supply. It’s a well-practised trick. The new CSL, like so many cars of its kind, plays to the high-rolling collector, and uses so much power and apparent hardcore temperament to flag its status loud and clear.So what will they get for the money? The new CSL’s bonnet and bootlid are made out of ‘CFRP’ in addition to the roof. The standard-fit M Carbon racing bucket seats save 24kg compared with the M4’s standard seats, and another 21kg comes courtesy of throwing out the second-row passenger seats and belts completely. Special forged alloy wheels, standard-fit carbon-ceramic brakes, and BMW M’s axle makeover saves 21kg across the car’s rolling chassis. 15kg of sound insulation has been removed from various places. And the CSL’s new titanium exhaust is 4kg lighter than the one it replaces.

 

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/bmw/m4-csl