A truly great M car is a difficult thing to capture. Not even BMW seems to know how to do it consistently. There are many good M cars—the E46 M3 CSL, the F90 M5 CS—and some whatever ones. But the highs are the ones we all remember, revered as some of the best that any automaker has ever produced.
The thing you need to understand about most M cars is that they are not sports cars. They’re incredibly fast and unbelievably grippy, but they’re also comfortable and livable as daily drivers. The M mandate has always been to make a motorsport-inspired BMW, not an all-out sports car. So when M can go nuts and build a true sporting tool, it builds something like the new M2 CS.
Five-hundred-and-twenty-three horsepower going straight to the rear wheels. Lightweight carbon parts. Stiffer, less forgiving suspension and drivetrain mounts. CS (Competition Sport to the uninitiated) has always included some of this treatment, but this latest G87 M2 CS has something more. It has the magic of the M cars that have made it into the history books.
The CS Treatment
Photo by: Chris Rosales / Motor1
What the numbers don’t tell you about the stiffer suspension, lighter weight, and increased horsepower is how BMW mixed it all together. Any schmuck could (theoretically) do similar modifications with aftermarket parts, and for a lot less money than the heart-attack-inducing $111,275 price tag of my particular M2. But what can’t be purchased is the careful, considered cohesion of the whole package.
There’s how it drives and feels, but I’ll get to that later. Visually, the M2 CS is almost entirely fixed compared to the fugly standard M2. A carbon decklid with a huge M3 CSL-style ducktail adds aggression to the M2’s silhouette, while a full-width rubber lip and CS-specific carbon intake grilles reduce the business of the front end.
You don’t get a carbon hood, oddly, but at least the roof is carbon as standard. You also get a set of CS wheels with BMW-spec Michelin Cup 2 tires.
Inside, the door cards are trimmed in carbon with ambient lighting that says “CS.” Of course, the seats are the M carbon buckets, and the center console is the same carbon piece as the M3 and M4 CS, which features zero cupholders. It’s a beautiful ornament, but even a single cupholder wouldn’t be too much trouble to ask for.
Controlled Chaos
Photo by: Chris Rosales / Motor1
The exciting stuff happens once you fire the CS to life. Immediately, there’s a lovely vibration, an awareness that an engine is running and breathing. This sensation is rare in a modern car, and highly deliberate; M specced harder mounts for the CS.
That little detail goes a long way to making it feel more special. Its 523-horsepower engine is borrowed from the M3 Competition xDrive, but it only drives the rear wheels, and it breathes through a titanium exhaust.
Then, there’s all of the CS specific calibration and tuning. Everything is sharpened to a finer point, with the throttle calibration featuring unbelievable sensitivity to input. It’s so sensitive that it’s genuinely difficult to drive smoothly in its most aggressive mode, and even puts the entire drivetrain in a rubberbanding, walloping resonance.
The exciting stuff happens once you fire the CS to life. Immediately, there’s a lovely vibration, an awareness that an engine is running and breathing.
A steady stream of road texture provides a lovely backing track to the overall aggression of the thing. Pavement textures murmur through the cabin, while the steering features just a whisper of that texture. The gearbox tune is comically aggressive, banging shifts off with huge spikes in torque even while driving around town. Of course, it can all be turned down, but who wants that?
This initial aggression, however, gives way to a precise suppleness. The dampers don’t fall into the same trap as the rest of the car. In practice, they feel softer-edged than the standard M2’s, though their responsiveness is increased substantially.
If anything, the M2 CS has incredibly exacting body control, with large bumps dispatched with only the slightest sensation, while still maintaining the athleticism of a much lighter car. It’s simply better, with no compromise.
As the speed builds, so does the CS’ sophistication. It is shockingly talkative, but it is also a car with two personalities. It’s part Bavarian Hellcat, with its monstrously powerful engine blowing through the tires up to fourth gear, but it is also a delicately difficult machine to master near its limits. Where every other BMW M car I’ve driven has a nice, gentle limit, the M2 CS has a cliff edge, and it’s all down to the fact that BMW lets it rotate like a bastard.
Clambering up to the edge is one thing, but staying on it makes the CS an addictive exercise in driving discipline. It is genuinely difficult to keep on the ball, with incredibly high limits and tiny mistakes punished with huge pushes of understeer or armfuls of oversteer.
The steering, which is typically numb in M cars but otherwise precise and weighty, communicates every tiny change in the car’s attitude, with a lightning-fast ratio that adds to the alertness. It’s the only M car of the current generation that will find more grip with careful manipulation of the brake and throttle, but it also punishes slightly timid inputs like no other M car.
Keep it on the wave, however, and you will find magic in this bulldog. It starts feeling like the modern idea of an old M car, with the engine’s resonances singing through the cabin, and the titanium exhaust carrying a strong echo of the sharp, raspy M cars of old. And the fact that it propels out of corners with a ferocity rivaling a McLaren helps too—523 hp hits harder here than it ever did in an M3 xDrive.
In many ways, it’s built for fans of M cars, not necessarily for fans of sporty cars in general. Sure, anyone could appreciate that it’s fast, fun, and lively. But those who have driven many M cars will feel something different in this car. It’s almost like the ultimate E46 M3 made real rather than a massively improved M2.
Verdict: One Of The Great M Cars
Photo by: Chris Rosales / Motor1
This M2 CS will go down as one of the great M cars, without a doubt. It’s spectacularly edgy to drive, and I’d caution anyone who isn’t experienced with powerful rear-drive cars to not turn the stability systems off. But the bald truth is that the CS comes to life when the electronics overlords go to bed.
Sure, it’s hideously expensive for a 2 Series ($111,275, remember?), but it isn’t really built for anyone except the biggest M nerds on earth. Unfortunately, it is as good as the price tag commands.
57
Source: Chris Rosales / Motor1
2026 BMW M2 CS
Engine
Twin-Turbocharged 3.0-Liter Inline-Six
Output
523 Horsepower / 479 Pound-Feet
Transmission
Eight-Speed Automatic
Drive Type
Rear-Wheel Drive
Speed 0-60 MPH
3.7 Seconds
Maximum speed
188 Miles Per Hour
Weight
3,770 Pounds
Efficiency
16 City / 23 Highway / 19 Combined
Seating Capacity
4
Base Price
$99,775
