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Awards season is here. But we’re not talking about the Emmys or the Oscars. Instead, we’re referring to various car of the year awards. Each of these has its charming little name and is presented by every major automotive fanfare on the planet. With this, many ask whether BMW’s newest performance vehicle can compete with the finest in the business. Top Gear’s Speed Week comes first and asks this for the BMW M4 CSL.
Ollie Marriage explains his thoughts on the M4 CSL and flogs it on track in this new video. In addition, he is remarkably honest. Some YouTubers will also test the M4 CSL and will not give a second thought to labelling it amazing as they feel its speed on the road. Marriage, on the other hand, has a fairly complex viewpoint on the matter.
To use the metaphor of Marriage, the BMW M4 CSL is a vehicle that isn’t sure what it is. The “L” in its “CSL” moniker stands for “Lightweight”, but the M4 CSL is everything but, as he notes. It weighs almost two tons, which is quite heavy for a car with the term “lightweight” in its name. And when you drive it, you can sense that.
It simply can’t compete on the road with some of the other performance cars in the test due to its size and weight. The M4 CSL will lose out to vehicles like the Porsche Cayman GT4 on a winding route. But the M4 CSL is excellent on track, as Marriage notes. Despite having super glue for tires, it is more than capable of producing smokey, violent drifts because of its hyper-responsive steering and balanced chassis. It must be grippier because he compared it to a Nissan GT-R.
The BMW M4 CSL is a great racing weapon. However, it feels clumsy and intrusive on the road, so he is a little torn about it. Since the new M4 is too big and heavy, BMW should have kept the “CSL” moniker exclusively for its M2.
