BMW is rounding off the 50th anniversary year of its M racing and performance brand with a stunning reboot of the iconic 3.0 CSL (coupe, sport, lightweight) from the 1970s.
It’s been flirting with this idea since 2015, when it revealed the 3.0 CSL Hommage R concept car, but there’s an important difference with the 2022 version: it’s a real production car that wealthy M fans can buy and drive home.
The original 3.0 CSL (see it in the video above) is now racing royalty. It won the European Touring Car Championship first time out in 1973 and claimed the title five more times from 1975-79. It was piloted by a who’s-who of top-level racing drivers, including Niki Lauda, Hans-Joachim Stuck and Kiwi Chris Amon – who was partnered with Stuck for the car’s first big win, at the 1973 Nurburgring Six Hour endurance race. For that event it wore a huge rear spoiler and became known as “The Batmobile”.
BMW says the new M4-based 3.0 CSL (but not to be confused with the “M4 CSL” launched earlier this year) aims to “combine the best of five decades of racing expertise with… in an automobile with a highly emotional aura”.
The new model boasts the most powerful straight six engine ever fitted to a BMW production model: 412kW/550Nm, a handy increase on the M4’s 375kW, not to mention the 151kW from the original 3.0 CSL in its final state of tune – itself a record for BMW at the time.
The new 3.0 CSL is six-sped manual only, with rear-drive. A special gearknob “protrudes from the centre console and… arouses anticipation”, says BMW. Okay then. The Active M Differential can go all the way up to 100 per cent locking for really big skids. There are 10 different settings for the traction control, including completely disabled, M carbon ceramic brakes are standard.
Carbon fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP) is used for virtually all body panels, while the front and rear aprons are completely carbon.
Just 50 examples of the 3.0 CSL will be built. The cars will take around three months to complete, thanks to labour-intensive features like a special paint process and hand-made carbon fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP) interior components.
But we have to ask: is the rear spoiler big enough?
Anyway, while the 3.0 CSL will be officially for sale, BMW hasn’t released a price and the left-hand drive car is extremely unlikely to be seen in NZ, except perhaps in the hands of an extremely determined, extremely rich collector.
But consider this: an M4 Competition is $188,900 and this year’s CSL is around twice that (no NZ price for that as yet either, but let’s call it the best part of $400,000). The new 3.0 CSL is 20 times as rare as the M4 CSL, so… if you have to ask, etc.
Keyword: BMW rounds off 50th anniversary year for M with sensational reboot of 3.0 CSL