M's bolt of lightening

IN ONLY THE THIRD TIME IN 50 YEARS, BMW HAS DUSTED OFF ITS THREE MOST HALLOWED LETTERS AND APPLIED THEM TO THE MOST POTENT M4 EVER

- DAN GARDNER

ON ONLY THREE occasions in more than 100 years has BMW craned the glowing crucible from its furnaces of creation and cast the coveted CSL badge. The first took the form of the E9 3.0 CSL ‘Batmobile’ in 1972, the second came 32 years later in 2004 for the E46 M3 CSL, and now the company has done it again to mark the arrival of the most potent M4 in its history. A CSL is a pretty big deal.

Launched at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este in Italy, the 2022 M4 CSL has finally revealed its secrets after months of speculation, but M4 fans wanting to buy a piece of BMW M history had better have deep pockets and good contacts.

Kicking off from $303,900, the new CSL is the most expensive M4 to be offered by BMW to date, narrowly usurping the $295,000 M4 GTS of 2016, and costs nearly double the price of the current champion of the 4 Series range, the M4 Competition, priced from $165,900.

Exact numbers allocated for Australia are yet to be confirmed but it’ll be somewhere between 20 and 30 of the total global production run of just 1000. If you are lucky enough to get your hands on one, the third CSL in the bloodline exemplifies the less-is-more mantra along with a little more-is-more.

Taking the M4 Competition as its basis, the M4 CSL has undergone a strict track-focused diet and comprehensive enhancement program to reduce weight by 100kg and sharpen the coupe’s peak performance. The result is the lightest, fastest and most powerful M4 to date.