For Top Gear, BMW has confirmed that the company has no plans for an M3 CSL or M4 CSL models.
Matt Collins, product manager for BMW’s small to medium cars, was proactive and responded to a question we all know it’s coming in the future. “Couple of years?” he says, “they’re whining about [a new CSL] now. At the moment though, there are no plans on a CSL. Or anything like a CSL either.”
BMW believes that with the significant weight savings in the new M3 and M4, are sufficient enough to qualify the two Ms as “lightweight.”
“There wasn’t a CSL on the previous generation (the E92 M3), and the way we look at it is like this: the CSL was great because it had this real focus on lightweight engineering. But we’ve already done that with these new cars. We’ve made them as light as possible – they come in under 1500kgs, which for a car like this is incredible.” Reference is made to the old E46 M3 weighing a similar amount.
“Rather than doing a halfway house to begin with,” Matt explains, “and then rolling out a CSL, we thought we’d make the ‘real’ car as light as we possibly could. So we’ve no plans whatsoever to make a lighter, harder version just yet.”
The E46 M3 CSL remains one of the enthusiats’ darling and often labeled as the “Best Performance Car BMW Has Ever Built.”
But just like with the E90/E92 generations, BMW might be planning for a limited-edition track-only model.
