Highly engaging and good on track but fails to justify its price

Cars like the M2 CS defy straightforward verdicts. Let’s face it: there are less entertaining, less usable, more common, less well-engineered and frankly less special machines that cost twice as much as this potent swansong for the most junior M car but wear their price tags altogether more comfortably. The problem for the CS, of course, is the existence of the considerably more attainable M2 Competition. On track, there may exist daylight between the two cars’ capabilities, but on the road, in order to improve the recipe in any easily identifiable and meaningful way, BMW needed to go further than it has with the CS. Probably by dropping the kerb weight.

In isolation, the CS is nevertheless a singularly stunning achievement and enormously rewarding on the right road. Incremental increases in agility, control, performance and steering feel have made an already spectacular car even better. The M2 also has the versatility of four seats and a good-sized boot. Cost aside, it is an exemplary M car. BMW may be adopting front drive and electrification elsewhere in its line-ups, but if it can find room for another generation or two of an untampered M2, we’ll be forever grateful.