The M3 CS is ready to play, and loves to be hurled into any corner
MUNICH, Germany — New M3s
were always a calendar highlight, but when the current generation
debuted it didn't quite measure up to (admittedly very high)
expectations. M has spent the years since 2015 making the M3 sharper.
The first try was a Performance Package, then a Competition Package and
now, finally, the new M3 CS. It's as if they've spent three years trying
to bring the M3 back to where it should have always been, and charging
extra for it.
The engineering is formidable, with features such as a magnesium sump, a
forged crankshaft, two variable-geometry turbochargers, and a
closed-deck crankcase, but it carries it all lightly. All you need to
know is that it's high tech and it works enthusiastically, but it's not
the CS's highlight. It's the chassis. One of the M3's biggest
shortcomings was the lofty feeling of its rear roll center. That's gone.
It's only 66 pounds lighter than the M3 Competition Package, and part of
that is the loss of the entire center console cubby to save every
available ounce. Sure, there's a carbon-fiber roof, and its CFRP hood is
25 percent lighter than the metal one, but the car still weighs 3,494
pounds. Inside, the center cubby's departure leaves the interior looking
a bit disjointed, stranding a lone USB plug behind the handbrake lever.
The heavily contoured front seats work brilliantly, with a two-tone
leather and Alcantara mix, while there's also a Harman Kardon sound
system, Navigation Professional and climate control.
There are aero fiddles, too, with a bigger front splitter that smells
like speed-hump bait and a trunklid spoiler that looks suspiciously as
if it was swiped off an Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio. But the biggest leap in sheer speed comes from a set of Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires that are progressive and easily manageable, as well as being Super Glue sticky.
There's more. It scores toys such as an active M differential, the
adaptive M suspension and a Sports exhaust, all to help with the pieces
of road between the braking point of a corner and the next straight bit.
Its three-stage dampers work best in Comfort mode on the road or in
Sport if the blacktop is super smooth (and almost never in Sport+ mode,
which is so comically hard it could crack diamonds). There is a separate
adjustment switch for the steering, and it, too, has two good modes
(Sport and Sport+) and one you'll want to skip past every time
(Comfort).
In sum, the CS is an M3 that likes to play. We smacked it up to its
speed limiter on the Autobahn, hurled it around a couple of slalom
tracks, ripped around a two-mile track and basically just threw it
everywhere. And that's a major difference from even the Competition
Package: Not only can you throw it in to corners instead of always
caressing it, but the car will like it. No previous version of this M3
is as coherent.
It has exquisite balance, and responds accurately and quickly to
steering inputs. Its performance envelope accommodates both gentle and
heavy-handed drivers, and gives them similar point-to-point speed, no
frights, and lets them gorge on giggles. It ripped to the speed limiter
on the Autobahn without a trace of instability, even under heavy
braking, and shone with all three adjustable modes in Sport.
On backroads, though, the car was undoubtedly quicker and calmer with
the damping in Comfort mode, where it kept the rubber on the road
longer, though it felt sharper in Sport. Its ride quality is a bit of a
shock, too, and isn't much firmer than a standard 3 Series despite
running on forged alloys and 265/35 R19 front and 285/30 R20 rear tires.
The biggest jump forward is its high-speed stability, especially
direction changes in the seven-speed dual-clutch's top three gears. The
stock model could feel a bit tiptoed at the rear, but the CS sits
flatter and feels lower, whipping through with a balance that allows
quick drivers to lean on the tail or the nose without puckered privates.
It came as a shock when M's suspenioneers insisted they had only
tweaked the skid-control software and the hardware was untouched. The
coding tweak squeegies out the last iffy piece of handling from the M3,
leaving a confident, poised and cheerful companion.
It is at its best when it's being utterly hurled at corners, as more
energy equals more accuracy. It's a lot more than just more bite from
the tires, and it even has the good manners to be incredibly forgiving
when you push too hard. The steering ranges between relatively heavy and
really heavy (Sport+), but it's always accurate and always fast, though
the wheel is now so fat it feels like gripping a pair of Coke cans.
The optional carbon-ceramic brake rotors make a quick car even quicker by taking advantage of the added grip of the Michelins,
though it can still be caught out over bumps that unweight the tires.
The beauty of it is that the CS feels balanced in a way that the M3
wasn't before, and agile in a way that feels like a slightly larger M2.
All the while, as the chassis' cornering muscle is trying to pull your
head off your neck, that engine keeps punching and howling and then,
when you think you've got it covered, you find launch control and it
punches even harder. There's enormous depth and range to its vocals,
too, and where the old M3 sixes howled and screamed to their rev limits,
the CS maintains its manliness all the way to 7,600 rpm.
M quotes a 0-to-62-mph time of 3.9 seconds and a 174-mph top speed, with
another 10 horsepower (up to 453 horsepower) and 37 added pound-feet of
twist (now 443 lb-ft) over the Competition Package. For added
impressiveness, that's up 28 hp over the stock M3. The straight-six
always starts in its Efficient mode (instead of Sport or Sport +), so
there's a subdued menace to its daily greeting. The four-pipe exhaust
leaps to a more in-your-face threat in its harder modes, filled with a
deeper growl, cracks and burbles, and it snarls at every flick of the
gas.
The engine's secret weapon is its torque. The M3 CS can blast to the
limiter in a straight line, but it is hugely impressive when it's
short-shifted on the wheel-mounted paddles controlling the seven-speed M
Double Clutch Transmission (the only available transmission, for better
or worse), letting you keep your foot in it even over bigger bumps.
It's got the mid-range gristle to be just as fast out of corners as if
you'd been at 7,000 rpm. It's one for the M3 fans, for sure, and it's
finally an F80 M3 you could properly love and live with every day, even
with its ridiculous pace.
There will only be 1,200 of them sold worldwide, and Europe's share is
almost sold out already. The U.S. scores the lion's share, but M won't
build our 550 cars until June, so don't expect to see the $97,000 sports
sedan on a corner anytime soon.
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