BMW not planning to have M3 CSL or M4 CSL

Top Gear reports that BMW has no plans to make any M3 CSL or M4 CSL models. This bit of information was confirmed by Matt Collins, product manager for BMW’s small to medium cars: “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.”

A limited-edition track-only model has not been ruled out so far.