The BMW M3 CSL Intimidated Me, Until I Drove It
Itâs the mid-2000s. Iâm not sure exactly when, but I canât be more than six or seven. Iâm sitting in the living room, watching a Top Gear rerun. The episodeâs a couple of years old; maybe one of those packaged-up âBest Ofâ DVD compilations. A young â well, younger â Jeremy Clarkson is standing on a quayside on the Isle of Man, walking around a grey BMW.
I canât quite understand whatâs so special about it. Itâs not low-slung, or pointy, or red, or Italian, or any of the other things Iâd been told made a car special. But then Clarkson points at the tyres, and they donât look anything like the ones on my dadâs Subaru Legacy. He explains that if you buy one of these BMWs, you have to sign a piece of paper to say you understand that if itâs cold or wet, that rubber wonât work properly. That was the moment my nascent petrolhead brain registered that the E46 BMW M3 CSL was something⊠different.
Itâs October 2024, and Iâm standing next to a grey BMW just like the one Clarkson was walking around on the Isle of Man all those years ago. The one that, for years, I knew as the car with tyres that didnât work properly in cold weather. And this morning was the first since last winter that I had to scrape my car windscreen. Hmmm.
BMW M3 CSL – side detail
Asymmetry on a car is usually a sign that functionality has taken precedence above all else. The fact that BMW gave the CSL that distinctive round opening on the left-hand side of its bumper, allowing its enormous carbon fibre airbox to greedily suck in air, then didnât bother fitting a dummy on the other side, says one thing: this car means business.
Thereâs plenty more of this throughout: the bare carbon roof, the subtly extended ducktail spoiler, the way those delectable lightweight wheels fill the lowered bodyâs arches, the fact that there were just two unerringly monochrome colour options â Silver Grey or Black Sapphire.
This wilful rejection of embellishment comes together to create an overall design that is â and thereâs no PG-friendly way of putting this â fucking awesome. It helps that the standard E46 coupe was a handsome thing, but thereâs no angle where the CSL doesnât ooze subtle, purposeful menace. It doesnât brashly display its tail feathers like modern M cars â just drops little hints that itâs a predator, not a peacock.
The same goes for the inside. The fixed-back bucket seats donât proudly carry their makerâs logo, or even the M division crest that would inevitably be embossed into the headrest if it were made today. Theyâre just⊠there, inviting you to awkwardly slide your bum over their high bolsters and drop down into them, leaving them gripping your hips and propping you bolt upright.
The steering wheel is just that â a steering wheel. It feels small and thin by modern standards, its rim wrapped in Alcantara. Thereâs a tiny M badge on the bottom spoke, and a single button marked with a digital O/I symbol. This activates the carâs track mode, loosening up its stability control. Itâll be kept well away from in a British autumn.
Thereâs nowhere to rest your arms; the central armrest is gone and the usual door cards are replaced by simple exposed carbon fibre pieces. It really is stripped down to the bare minimum, although BMWâs UK heritage car isnât quite the full road racer â like most of the 422 UK CSLs, it had the boxes ticked for air-con and a radio.
BMW M3 CSL – interior
The best example of this carâs functional beauty, though, lies beneath its bonnet. The huge carbon airbox that gives this uprated 3.2-litre S54 straight-six so much of its character is a piece of absolute sculpture. It occupies about half the usable space in the engine bay, and itâs almost a shame it has to spend its days hidden from view. At least you can hear it, though. My word, can you hear it.
Start the CSL, and it settles into a gruff, industrial idle. And now we have to address The Issue; the one point of contention that people have with this car. Because to move off, you donât depress a clutch and move a manual gearknob up and left, but simply snick the funny little SMG gear selector across to the right.
Trundling around town, the six-speed SMG gearbox â effectively a deconstructed manual, with an automatic, hydraulically-actuated clutch â isnât great. Quelle surprise. Left in automatic mode, it slurs upshifts and tosses your head back and forth on downshifts. Even at these speeds, though, you can feel the directness of the surprisingly heavy steering rack, and the immediateness of the throttleâs response.
BMW M3 CSL – interior detail
Freed from 30 zones, and once all but the last couple of the little orange lights encircling the rev counter have extinguished to let you know that everythingâs up to temperature, the CSL can come properly alive.
The way the engine gathers revs is unlike very few other cars Iâve experienced. It starts off deep and guttural, gets all zingy in the mid-range, and then peaks with an angry, animalistic bark. Itâs such a purposeful, authentic noise â thereâs nothing artificial, no ostentatious crackles or bangs. Itâs as raw and unfiltered as a double espresso, and makes you feel just as tingly and awake.
And then, as you approach 8000rpm, you get to pull the right-hand paddle or nudge the SMG selector backwards and do it all again. Iâm not going to pretend this car wouldnât suit a manual, but the sheer aggression of the SMG feels like part of its character now. High up in the rev range, upshifts wallop you in the back with a jolt that feels like the car violently dissipating all the energy itâs built up.
BMW M3 CSL – side
The CSL had the SMG âboxâs deliciously anorak-ish feature that allowed you to adjust the gearshift ferocity. For the full experience, itâs really worth cranking it up. Downshifts elicit a little yelp of revs, setting you up for the other thing this carâs good at: corners.
Truthfully, the nerves around the CSLâs bite-your-hand-off reputation pretty quickly disappeared. Tyres have come a long way since 2003, and BMWâs car wears some much friendlier Michelin PS4 rubber than the slightly scary PS Cups it left the factory on.
This means you can properly lean on the carâs considerable abilities. In the dry, grip is abundant, and its near-perfect weight distribution keeps everything beautifully balanced. Youâre always reminded of the fact that 355bhp is going to the rear wheels, but as long as you donât get too silly, it never threatens to overwhelm them. The steering, while not super-talkative, is so direct and perfectly weighted that it gives you all the confidence and control to string together a series of twists with utter precision.
BMW M3 CSL – rear detail
And then, when the roads open up, you can indulge a little more in the CSLâs glorious acceleration. 355bhp and 273lb ft was pretty staggering for a 3.2-litre naturally aspirated motor back in 2003. Itâs still a lot today, especially in something that weighs a reasonably scant 1385kg â around 100kg less than a standard E46 M3. The 0-62mph time is quoted at 4.9 seconds, and it feels every bit that quick. When the acceleration is so beautifully linear and consistently strong, and accompanied by that soundtrack, itâs more than quick enough.
The CSL feels like the result of BMW packing off its entire accounting team to the south of France for a couple of weeks, and letting its engineers have at it while the bean-counters were distracted. Every little detail feels optimised to be as good as it possibly can â not to please marketing teams or accountants or regulators, but to just burrow straight into the base of your skull, to appeal on an almost animal level.
BMW M3 CSL – rear
Cars like this canât really exist anymore â even in the lightest, most hardcore, track-optimised stuff, the realities of emissions rules and our ever-growing desire for more of everything dulls the tingle created by pure, raw engineering.
The M3 CSL originated in a moment in automotive history that wasnât going to last for much longer. Perhaps seeing this, BMW threw all of its expertise at it. Itâs undoubtedly this nostalgia for the not-so-distant past thatâs driven the prices of these things to the silly sphere, and left anyone that picked one up seven or eight years ago, when they were around ÂŁ30k, laughing.
Itâs little surprise that itâs such a sought-after thing, though. The result of the M division giving it their everything is a car as primally exciting, as base-level satisfying, as anything Iâve ever driven, and one utterly deserving of its legendary status.
