The New BMW M3 CS: A Little Brother with Big Potential
The BMW M5 CS is widely regarded as one of the greatest M cars of the current era. It set new performance standards while retaining everyday usability, making it a super-saloon that is hard to beat. Now, the BMW M3 CS has a tough act to follow as the baby brother to the M5 CS. However, the M3 CS shares much of its hardware with last year’s BMW M4 CSL, which was a fine car but not an icon like its predecessors. The M3 CS seeks to repeat the philosophy that served the M5 CS so well, with the only real difference being that one has eight cylinders and the other six.
Power and Performance
The M3 CS is based on the M3 Competition, but with a power boost of 39bhp over the standard model, taking it to the same 542bhp as the M4 CSL. This is achieved mostly by increasing the turbo boost by 0.4 bar to 2.1 bar and by some tweaks to the ECU. The engine, torque for which remains at 479lb ft, gets stiffer mounts to better connect it to the body and is hooked up to an eight-speed automatic gearbox driving all four wheels. There are some changes to the active differential to work with the power boost, and the all-wheel-drive set-up is more rear-biased. However, if you so wish, you can make the car fully rear-wheel drive by turning off the stability control.
Being all-wheel drive helps the M3 CS record a 0.3sec faster 0-62mph time than the rear-wheel-drive M4 CSL, at 3.4sec. A new titanium backbox is fitted for the exhaust, which sounds louder but not antisocially so over the M3 Competition.
Chassis and Suspension
The steering, chassis, and suspension are also overhauled, with changes to the shocks, coils, and anti-roll bars in particular, all done to increase the sportiness and track potential of the M3 CS while not removing the M3 Competition’s overall compliance. The front alloys are 19in and the rears 20in, and both Pirelli P Zero and Michelin Pilot Sport 4 S tyres are offered, the latter being equipped to our car.
Weight-saving features and parts on the car save 20kg over the M3 Competition. These include a new bonnet, air intakes and splitter at the front, and a spoiler and whopping diffuser at the rear. A carbonfibre roof also features as standard, the material used liberally inside as well as to trim the likes of the shift paddles and the exterior mirror housings. Carbon-ceramic brakes are a £7295 option and were fitted to our test car.
Interior
The front seats are M Carbon buckets, though they are electrically adjustable. Unlike in the M4 CSL, the rear bench remains intact. In total, around 15% of the car has been changed over the M3 Competition (although the price has gone up by 35%, to an eye-watering £115,900). Dirk Hacker, BMW M development boss, says this is not a better M3 but a different flavour of the M3, one in dynamic positioning terms that settles nicely between the M3 Competition and M4 CSL.
Driving Experience
Even in the Road driving mode with everything in its least aggressive setting, it feels like a car that is more alert and alive than the M3 Competition without feeling compromised on the road. It will happily potter through town or cruise on an A-road knowing that its time will come when you find a more enticing run of asphalt.
The M3 CS feels substantially quicker across all speeds than the M3 Competition. There’s a real force to the way it accelerates, the upshifts feeling crisper and even more precise. While the exhaust is louder, the car still has a stealthy vibe and an almost effortless way of gathering pace. The suspension does a great job of smoothing everything out, making bumps, scars, and crests in the road less of an issue.
The ride is unsurprisingly firm but not shockingly so, nor again compromising the car’s broader appeal. To that end, it feels more like an M3 Competition than a car created solely in pursuit of a Nürburgring lap time. That it can do both makes it all the more impressive.
A track will reveal its limit handling more, but there is so much grip that you really have to push to disrupt the M3 CS’s stability. It turns in very sharply and feels resistant to understeer, with a playful on-demand squirt from the rear axle raising a smile when you squeeze the throttle exiting a corner. It can take corners at speeds that an M3 Competition simply can’t, and you’re able to raise more of a smile while doing so.
Conclusion
On this short first acquaintance, the M3 CS shows that it is able to excite its driver more than the M3 Competition ever can, and it does so while not completely sacrificing the donor car’s broader appeal. It’s a welcome development of the M3, then, although the kind of step you’d hope and expect for such a price premium.
Is it worth the price upgrade? That’s the one place where this review will hedge its bets, as more time, miles, and familiarity will reveal the answer to that – the M5 CS was worth its own similar hike, remember. Good value or otherwise, the M3 CS is the latest evidence that CS is becoming M shorthand for showing the brand at its very best.