It’s a bit of an animal
So this is it, the last of the line for the M2 before an all-new successor appears next year. Not a bad way to bow out: the CS is a livewire and no mistake. Were you observing our convoy from a distance, the BMW might look a bit like a saloon interloper, its room-for-four roofline half a foot higher than the sports cars. Then you get closer and see the forged wheels (finished in shy and retiring gold here), the gaping vents, the splitters and gurneys. And hear it: the turbocharged 3.0-litre straight-six, borrowed from the M4 Competition, shrieks through four tailpipes. The CS’s roof is made from broad-weave carbonfibre but it might as well be a skinhead; it’s the hardest car here.
The most powerful car here too, by a bit at 444bhp, but it feels like a lot. Behind its fat alcantara wheel the gulf in performance between the M2 and the others feels vast. After the Cayman, it feels almost comically fast. Put your foot down at a generous cruising speed in fifth and it surges forward like the GTS in a lower gear at half the speed. Sounds good too, if not quite as sonically satisfying as the Porsche or Lotus. It’s perhaps a tad noisier than the Cayman at a cruise; the Porsche is quiet by sports car standards, other than a bit of tyre buzz on coarse surfaces.
The 2-series is a small BMW but in this company it feels like driving a block of flats from the first floor. Your first instinct after swapping from the Cayman is to try to lower the seat only to find it’s already on the bottom of its travel. Likewise in the Lotus and the Alpine, which set their seats a touch higher than their appearance would suggest. Only the Porsche can offer a proper, floor-scudding sports car driving position. The BMW can offer a proper gearbox (and a proper handbrake), our car’s six-speed manual being the default choice and DCT an option. Great as the latter is, there is something special about driving a potent modern car and conducting its gears yourself. Like the Porsche, the throttle is blipped automatically on downshifts but switching the stability control off disables that function, clearly assuming a hardcore helmsmith is at the wheel. Although you’re most likely to drive with the stability switched off on a circuit, where you might appreciate the autoblip’s help for fast lapping. And Lincolnshire has just the place.
A bike trackday is in progress as we roll into Cadwell Park, twowheeled projectiles screaming like castrati howler monkeys as they rocket around its rollercoaster layout. The circuit is kindly allowing us to sneak on for photography and a handful of laps while the bikes break for lunch, and the M2 is like a cork released from a bottle.
It’s only when you turn the traction control off that you realise just how busy it’s been (and how subtly it intervenes) to keep the M2’s rampant 444bhp and 406lb ft in check, like an ecient PA looking after a loose-cannon boss. Unshackled, the CS can transform from neat and tidy lapper to Hollywood car chase, happy to hang its tail out at every turn depending on the weight of your right foot.
On the track, it has the power to keep big slides going, although its delivery is a little odd. There’s not much below 4000rpm or so, and it’s in the high reaches of the rev range that it really starts to get into its stride, so you need to use lower gears and higher revs than you might expect. That goes for the road too, where there’s a blurry edge of turbo lag exiting roundabouts in third gear, for example. Often it needs a downshift to second beforehand to stay on the boil, almost like a naturally-aspirated car. The Cayman’s throttle response would feel great by comparison, were its edge not dulled by tall gears.
Like the Cayman GTS, the M2 CS rides on adaptive dampers as standard, and like all modern M cars there’s a plethora of mix ’n’ match modes for steering, throttle response and said dampers. I actually find the middle Sport setting more comfortable than slightly looser Comfort (washboard Sport+ is best left for the track), and the CS rides very well for such a focused car. It’s a smidge smoother than the Porsche, and far more so than the Alpine. Only the silky Lotus is ahead for ride comfort.
Price is a real stumbling block for the CS (that, and a character and aesthetic that’s maybe a bit too lairy for some). A £75k (£81k as tested) tag is hard to ignore when the M2 started from around £44k back in 2016. That notwithstanding, this is the best M2 I’ve ever driven. Perhaps it’s a shame this last hurrah couldn’t have been a no-holds-barred M2 GTS, with the back seats deleted and a half-rollcage. But the presence of back seats and a decent boot makes the CS’s larger-than-life abilities all the more remarkable. ⊲
It’s only when you turn the traction control o that you realise how busy it’s been