Yahoo Autos 2025 BMW M4 CS First Drive: Splitting the CSL Difference
Surprise and delight are something automakers spend millions trying to deliver. A car that does something wonderful and unexpected is a great thing, but sometimes an entirely predictable car can be pretty amazing too. That’s what we have with the 2025 BMW M4 CS.
This is the exact-same formula we’ve seen before. BMW used it for the M4 CSL, a lightweight, rear-drive flavor of the new M4 stacked with desirable performance-oriented options. It was almost enchanting enough to make one overlook the roughly $60,000 premium over a standard M4.
Next came the M3 CS. Much like the CSL, it too was a performance-oriented variant, but it traded the M3’s manual transmission for the increased security of all-wheel drive. So it was heavier and slightly less pure, but with 543 hp on tap, all-wheel drive delivers an obvious benefit.
Now here we are with the M4 CS. Similarly, the M4 CS gives you nearly all the performance-oriented bits of the CSL plus some subtle but appealing style tweaks, along with BMW’s xDrive system to turn all four wheels.
This isn’t a vanilla all-wheel drive with a dumb center differential linked to open diffs on each axle. The center diff can intelligently vary the front-to-rear torque split and completely disengage the front axle to turn the CS rear-driven. At the back is an active differential that can dynamically vary torque distribution from left to right, sending more effort to the outside wheel to help counter the understeer inherent in an all-wheel-drive platform. That said, no amount of drivetrain trickery can do away with the extra 240 or so pounds the CS carries compared with the CSL.
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Does the M4 CS deliver? To find out, I took advantage of an opportunity BMW offered to drive it on the Salzburgring in Austria, a charming circuit nestled in a lovely valley that seems far too peaceful for screaming engines. The 2.6-mile track provides a challenging mixture of corners and undulating straights that test both a car’s low-speed agility and its high-speed stability. Sadly, there was no chance to also experience the M4 CS on road, and the car I drove rode on extremely aggressive semislick Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2R tires, which will be optional in the U.S.
Confidence is key at the Salzburgring, and with 543 hp to deploy, I was glad for the added assurance of all-wheel drive. But that driven front axle is a subtle thing. With more torque typically delivered to the rear wheels, the M4 CS still feels like a car driven from the rear. Pushed hard, the back end of the car steps out in a steady, progressive way that I wouldn’t call snappy but is surely entertaining.
More enlightening, though, were the track’s tighter, decreasing-radius turns, which slowed things down before returning me to the front straight to begin another lap. These were the sort of corners that, in most cases, will punish overeager entry speeds with terminal understeer, this then compromising top speed on the following straight.
Here again, the M4 CS proved nimble and eager to turn, despite a weight of about 3880 pounds. This is a rare all-wheel-drive car that recovers well from understeer, even if you do the typically verboten thing of stepping harder on the accelerator. The combination of the torque vectoring across the rear axle and the subtle application of power at the front meant the car was happy to go where I wanted it, even when I thought I was asking too much.
The adaptive suspension also proved quite happy to leap over the curbs at the track’s first chicane, one side of the car then the other tilted into the air but coming down and settling in one clean motion, letting me get straight back on the power. The track also features a long, sweeping back straight that’s flat out even as it leads to a blind braking zone heading into a fast turn, one you can’t see until you’re in it. Even over bumpy asphalt, as the digital speedometer climbed toward the 188-mph top speed, the CS tracked exactly where I wanted; I was seeing 160-plus mph by the far end.
An unmitigated delight? Not quite. Unfortunately, the CS has been saddled with the same unnecessarily angular M Carbon Full Bucket seats found in the CSL. This is the design with a small carbon-fiber panel in the base that separates a driver’s legs and looks like it belongs in a urologist’s office. Longer stints here are uncomfortable, as you can’t easily shift your weight.
I thought the seats might prove more useful on track than on road, but I was wrong. They are still awful. I’m a left-foot braker, so I like to position my left leg in the middle of the seat to line it up nicely with the pedal. Here that meant painfully straddling the obnoxious carbon-fiber hump.
Then there’s the question of the M4 CS’s controversial styling, which definitely won’t appeal universally. I was not keen on the flared-nostril look of the new M3 and M4 when they launched four years ago, but I have to admit it has grown on me. As I paced around the Isle of Man Green M4 CS you see here, its paintwork contrasting nicely with its bronze-colored wheels, I was smitten.
That reaction was egged on by the aggressive styling, which, like on the CSL, takes cues from the IMSA M4 GT3. That means additional winglets at the base of the front bumper, as well as relatively subtle red colorways within the radiator grille apertures. This level of visual confidence suits the car well.
The M4 CS looks great and drives even better than the regular car, leaving only those abysmal seats as a literal pain point. Well, that and the price. This car starts at $125,325. That’s better than the $140K CSL, but a huge $45,050 more than a base BMW M4. Is it worth the premium? Rational argument says the answer is absolutely not, but cars like this aren’t really designed to satisfy the logical portion of your brain.
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