BMW M2 CS

Accomplished junior coupé gets 523bhp Competition Sport treatment

- MATT SAUNDERS

The M division's modern approach to conjuring midlife interest in its products could easily rouse the cynic in you. Now that we've had CS and in some cases even CSL versions of just about all the really core M cars of the past decade or so, the pattern is so well set that we might wonder if it's beginning to make its regular ones a little less special, in order for enough weight-saving, power-boosting and driveline-enhancing fairy dust to be kept back for the Competition Sport specials. Frankly, how could it not be?

However, when the latest bit of that strategy is made manifest in a car like the M2 CS, cynicism becomes rather harder to maintain. By 'harder' I mean impossible, quite honestly. There's just an abiding sense of rightness - righteousness, even - about the new M2 CS. It's the consummation of something right at the core of the M division's identity - and so wonderfully executed and significant that it almost feels wholesome.