New BMW M4 CS 2017 Review
We get to grips with the new BMW M4 CS, and find it's now the pick of the growing M4 range
Three years into its model cycle BMW continues to add to the M4 line up with this, the lighter, more powerful £89,130 M4 CS. Available to order now, the CS between the M4 Competition Pack and the limited-run, stripped out GTS model launched in 2016. While BMW isn’t limiting CS production, numbers are restricted by the factory’s capacity, which currently stands at 1000 units per year.
In developing the M4 CS BMW M GmbH has spent the majority of its time with a laptop remapping and tuning the car’s engine performance, suspension settings and steering. This has resulted in the 3.0 litre, twin-turbocharged straight-six developing an additional 10bhp and 50Nm over the M4 Competition Pack, raising peak outputs to 454bhp and 600Nm respectively, the later the same as the GTS. The increase in torque is particularly impressive considering the lack of any hardware updates.
In terms of performance, the engine tune has resulted in a 3.9-second 0-62mph time (three tenths quicker than an M4) and a 174mph maximum speed. Only a seven-speed M DCT gearbox is offered.
As with its engine the M4 CS’s chassis has been electronically optimised. BMW M could have taken what it had learnt during the GTS development program and selected the most suitable hardware upgrades. Instead the team took the M4 Competition Pack’s stiffer springs, dampers and anti-roll bars and set about the CS’s chassis by tuning what they already had. And the same goes for the steering, where the same three settings (Comfort, Sport and Sport Plus) have all been optimised for the CS, primarily to get the most from its 19-inch (front) and 20-inch (rear) Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres.
There is more to the M4 CS than a number of electronic remaps and a set of trick, super sticky tyres, however. There’s a CFPR bonnet, that not only includes a large centrally mounted air vent but is 25 per cent lighter than an M4’s bonnet. Other external changes include a front splitter, larger cooling intakes and a rear diffuser fashioned from carbon fibre, a larger rear wing and a carbon skinned roof, all of which goes to reducing weight by 32kg to 1,580kg.
Inside, BMW M has fitted a pair of manually adjustably Alcantara trimmed lightweight sports seats and the lightweight door cards from the GTS, including the delightful fabric door pulls, while the centre storage compartment is no more and the steering wheel is also trimmed in Alcantara.
Ensconced in the M4 CS’s cockpit you immediately feel you’re about to experience more than a BMW marketing exercise. The driving position sits you deep within the car, your hip point nice and low, back upright and legs falling directly on the pedals, it’s a driving position on par with the fixed bucket seats offered in the GTS.
It doesn’t take long to discover there’s much more to like about the CS than its seating positioning and how it sounds, though. A play with the M Drive systems allows you to select the Sport Plus throttle map, set the steering to Sport and the dampers in Comfort. In this configuration the CS is ripe for the road. All three throttle maps have been sharped for the CS but it’s Sport Plus that brings the car’s engine to life, with whip crack responses to your every input, the revs rising at a rate regular M4 drivers won’t have experienced.
There’s an equally honed and alert way the M4 CS’s chassis performs, too. Step from an M4 Club Sport and you can detect the fine-tuning that has gone on. Those changes to the damper settings allow you to extract the very best from the M4’s front-engined, rear-drive configuration. It turns in quicker, those suspension and steering changes working together to extract the most from the Cup 2 tyres and tighter chassis.
Once you’re at the apex the poise and grip the CS summons up is hugely impressive. Where a regular M4 would be calling on the traction control or smearing its tyres across the tarmac the CS allows you to extract the very best from the M4’s chassis and engine. It comes alive, engages with you and pushes you to extract as much of its performance as you can handle. Where an M4 can feel as if it’s working against you the CS is with you all the way, it’s the best of the current M4 range. Source by autoexpress.co.uk
We get to grips with the new BMW M4 CS, and find it's now the pick of the growing M4 range
Three years into its model cycle BMW continues to add to the M4 line up with this, the lighter, more powerful £89,130 M4 CS. Available to order now, the CS between the M4 Competition Pack and the limited-run, stripped out GTS model launched in 2016. While BMW isn’t limiting CS production, numbers are restricted by the factory’s capacity, which currently stands at 1000 units per year.
In developing the M4 CS BMW M GmbH has spent the majority of its time with a laptop remapping and tuning the car’s engine performance, suspension settings and steering. This has resulted in the 3.0 litre, twin-turbocharged straight-six developing an additional 10bhp and 50Nm over the M4 Competition Pack, raising peak outputs to 454bhp and 600Nm respectively, the later the same as the GTS. The increase in torque is particularly impressive considering the lack of any hardware updates.
In terms of performance, the engine tune has resulted in a 3.9-second 0-62mph time (three tenths quicker than an M4) and a 174mph maximum speed. Only a seven-speed M DCT gearbox is offered.
As with its engine the M4 CS’s chassis has been electronically optimised. BMW M could have taken what it had learnt during the GTS development program and selected the most suitable hardware upgrades. Instead the team took the M4 Competition Pack’s stiffer springs, dampers and anti-roll bars and set about the CS’s chassis by tuning what they already had. And the same goes for the steering, where the same three settings (Comfort, Sport and Sport Plus) have all been optimised for the CS, primarily to get the most from its 19-inch (front) and 20-inch (rear) Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres.
There is more to the M4 CS than a number of electronic remaps and a set of trick, super sticky tyres, however. There’s a CFPR bonnet, that not only includes a large centrally mounted air vent but is 25 per cent lighter than an M4’s bonnet. Other external changes include a front splitter, larger cooling intakes and a rear diffuser fashioned from carbon fibre, a larger rear wing and a carbon skinned roof, all of which goes to reducing weight by 32kg to 1,580kg.
Inside, BMW M has fitted a pair of manually adjustably Alcantara trimmed lightweight sports seats and the lightweight door cards from the GTS, including the delightful fabric door pulls, while the centre storage compartment is no more and the steering wheel is also trimmed in Alcantara.
Ensconced in the M4 CS’s cockpit you immediately feel you’re about to experience more than a BMW marketing exercise. The driving position sits you deep within the car, your hip point nice and low, back upright and legs falling directly on the pedals, it’s a driving position on par with the fixed bucket seats offered in the GTS.
It doesn’t take long to discover there’s much more to like about the CS than its seating positioning and how it sounds, though. A play with the M Drive systems allows you to select the Sport Plus throttle map, set the steering to Sport and the dampers in Comfort. In this configuration the CS is ripe for the road. All three throttle maps have been sharped for the CS but it’s Sport Plus that brings the car’s engine to life, with whip crack responses to your every input, the revs rising at a rate regular M4 drivers won’t have experienced.
There’s an equally honed and alert way the M4 CS’s chassis performs, too. Step from an M4 Club Sport and you can detect the fine-tuning that has gone on. Those changes to the damper settings allow you to extract the very best from the M4’s front-engined, rear-drive configuration. It turns in quicker, those suspension and steering changes working together to extract the most from the Cup 2 tyres and tighter chassis.
Once you’re at the apex the poise and grip the CS summons up is hugely impressive. Where a regular M4 would be calling on the traction control or smearing its tyres across the tarmac the CS allows you to extract the very best from the M4’s chassis and engine. It comes alive, engages with you and pushes you to extract as much of its performance as you can handle. Where an M4 can feel as if it’s working against you the CS is with you all the way, it’s the best of the current M4 range. Source by autoexpress.co.uk
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