I have always believed that the best BMWs are not necessarily the most powerful or most expensive. They are those who feel raw, connected and apologetically. Cars that speak with their instincts not with their table. That is probably the reason why I still think that the BMW 1M is one of the best M cars that have ever been done. I have had a 1m for years. It is loud, twitching, a little handful – and absolutely perfect. It has no unusual suspension technology or carbon fiber overload. It is only short, wide, manual, rear wheel drive and light. This last part is the key. At around £ 3,250, it weighs almost 500 pounds less than the new M2 CS, so that the 1M already fits the spirit of a CSL in many ways. Maybe not officially, but emotional? Absolutely.
So I can’t help but ask: Should BMW finally make an M2 CSL?
A lighter, more common M2? Yes, please
BMW launched the second generation M2 a little more than two years ago. Since then, the car has steadily sharpened with a 2024 base of 20 hp and most recently with the M2 CS, which gives even more power and takes about 90 pounds (at least in US specification). It is brilliant – but also expensive. With options, the CS crawls over six figures. And yet I can’t help but believe that further development in the tank is left.
A CSL.
If BMW is serious to build a last, boy, pure combustion vehicle, the G87 is the perfect platform. It already has the keeping of the broad route, the S58 engine with sufficient tuning head freedom and a loyal followers of owners and future collectors. A CSL version could push it further – rear seats, wherever possible cut off fat and choose the type of handling that makes you sweat a little at the corner output.
How BMW has already annoyed us with one
Let’s not forget – BMW has already made an M2 CSL. Not for sale, but for internal debates. When the F87 generation settled, BMW M built two prototypes: a M2 CS and a more extreme M2 -CSL. The CS has won, but the CSL mule was wild-fixed rear wing, Roll Cage, 3D printed aero clips that looked like something that grew in a laboratory. It even held the old N55 engine because it was only a demo car. But it showed that BMW thought about it.
This prototype still follows me. Since it shows that it is buried somewhere in a folder in Munich, there is a blueprint for the perfect compact M car. All it needs is a green light.
What a modern M2 -CSL could look like
Let’s imagine it for a second. A G87 CSL without rear seats. Carbon roof, carbon hood, one-piece bucket seats, no touchscreen gimmicks focus. Let yourself fall from the CS even more £ 100, maybe even more. Increase the S58 to 543 hp and fit the M4 CSL. Keep up with rear-wheel drive-noise XDrive-and yes, as much as it hurts me to say it, leave the manual. Not because I want it, but because the 6-speed simply cannot process this type of output.
It would be brutal. Also expensive – probably almost 130,000 US dollars. But in an era in which the average luxury -V 90,000 US dollars press and SUVs in performance weigh almost 6,000 pounds, we need exactly what we need: a Swan song for the small, wild BMW.
I don’t keep my 1m because it is fast, but because it feels quickly. It is easy. It lives. And in a way it is the CSL that BMW never built. This car reminds me every day, which makes BMW M special when it is best. The G87 m2 CS is tight. But I think a CSL would literally and mentally go on. It would be a last celebration of everything we loved in gas-powered M-cars-the rules, supervisory authorities and reality bring us into an electrical future.
So yes – BMW should make an M2 CSL.
