BMW M has the Goldilocks touch

Thrillingly sporty yet perfectly practical, for Andrew Frankel the M4 CS, fitting between the Competition and CSL, feels just right

- Andrew Frankel

It gives me no pleasure to say it, but the only true BMW M car of recent times to which I've felt a proper connection is the baby of them all, the M2. As an alternative to a Porsche Cayman for those in need of rear seats it's the possible choice you can make. It could be lighter - a lot lighter indeed - but it's quite compact, well-balanced, more than fast enough and once properly wound up, really good fun. A far cry from the new M5 at the other end of the spectrum which is not merely a bit overweight, but astonishingly so, and more than sufficient for this burden to ensure that, however objectively impressive, that key driver interaction without which no M car should wear the badge is notable only for its absence.

And I don't think I held high hopes for this new M4 CS either, which sits as a sort of halfway house between the 'standard' M4 Competition and the M4 CSL which appeared in 2022 and lasted as long as it took to sell the limited run of 1000 units. I've said in the past that I preferred the M2 to the M4 and the most recent M4 I drove took on (in estate form) an M340i, which is not a proper M car, and an Alpina B3 and came last. And the CSL was just too firm and too much of a handful in the wet for my tastes.