BMW's First Sebring Win Led to a Stellar New M2 CSPaul King(left) Ever the professional, Redman brought his racing suit from the iconic Sebring win. (right)Redman could also stand three years to the right under the 1978 sign. But then he'd have to change into a Porsche shirt.BMWBMW already built ultimate driving machines in the early Seventies, but the slogan hadn't been coined yet, and the brand was unknown to most Americans. During 1974, the entire BMW lineup was outsold roughly 36 to one by the Ford Pinto in the United States.This story originally appeared in Volume 36 of Road & Track.Hearst Owned - Hearst OwnedThat changed in 1975. In February, BMW launched its first factory-backed effort in U.S. racing, entering a pair of 3.0 CSLs in the IMSA Camel GT series. The CSLs were based on BMW's European Touring Car Championship competitor, and the driver lineup was stacked: Hans-Joachim Stuck, Sam Posey, Ronnie Peterson, and Brian Redman. All legends in their prime. To correct any Americans who might think the B in the brand's name stood for "British," the windshield banners on the race cars spelled it out: Bavarian Motor Works.(top left) Velvet Blue Metallic is one of four paint choices for the CS. (top right) The M2 CS is heavier than the 3.0 CSL that Redman drove, but the M2 has a heated steering wheel. (bottom) In the last hour of the 1975 race, alternator failing, Redman turned off the lights except when passing pit lane to avoid a black flag.Paul KingThe season-opening 1975 24 Hours of Daytona was ugly—both CSLs retired with engine problems—so the team turned its attention to what was next, the 12 Hours of Sebring. Sebring is ugly, with a choppy track surface and a mid-state, swampy location over an hour's drive from either coast. This is not cosmopolitan Miami. This is Florida-man Florida, where gators are pests, sustenance, lovers.Paul KingAdvertisementAdvertisementAt Sebring, with Allan Moffat replacing Peterson, BMW hit its stride. Showcasing the masterful handling that has defined BMW's best efforts, the brick-shaped 3.0 CSLs proved so fast that one was black-flagged twice after corner workers reported its brake lights weren't working. In the pits, no problems were found. The third time corner workers reported an outage, team principal Jochen Neerpasch asked track officials where they were seeing the issue. After hearing it was in Turns 1 and 2, Neerpasch told the bewildered officials that his cars did not need to brake there.Posey and Stuck were instructed to push to the limit, and their CSL lasted only about five hours. Redman's car took the lead in hour four and never gave it up.Revs InstituteStuck and Posey's car broke, so both took stints in the surviving car. Even sharing driving duties with three teammates instead of one, Redman drove more than seven of the race's 12 hours. BMW's win coincided with the debut of the brand's defining tagline. Advertisements touted the Sebring triumph and subsequent Camel GT wins, establishing an indelible foundation for BMW as the Ultimate Driving Machine. Sales went from 15,007 cars in 1974 to more than 19,000 the following year, then ballooned to nearly 100,000 a decade later.Paul KingThat's how BMW first earned its American racing and performance cred. The M2 CS is its current expression.There are deeper BMW legends than the M2's. The M1 was the first car to use the simple two-character nomenclature in '78, and the M3 has defined attainable and usable performance since the E30 version debuted in '85. But in the 16 years since it appeared as the 1-series M Coupe, the M2 has adhered more closely than its siblings to the traits that made M cars icons. For one, BMW only just caved and introduced an all-wheel-drive option. And the M2 has a higher manual-transmission take rate than the M3 and M4 combined. As those foundational M cars flounder, increasingly morphing into emotionless speed machines, the M2 shines as M's enduring soul.Hearst OwnedThe littlest M is already so perfect a sports coupe that my reaction upon reading about the latest CS's 50 additional horsepower was, "I hope they didn't screw it up." You don't cut another facet into a diamond or add a harpsichord to Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 and call it better. In addition to the extra power, the CS also gets a lowered and tweaked suspension, as well as recalibrated electronics overseeing the steering, brakes, differential, and stability control. While the CS is 88 pounds lighter than the regular automatic M2, BMW had the good sense not to use the full Competition Sport Light label on a 3725-pound two-door.AdvertisementAdvertisementBetween cataloging all the ways the track has changed in the past five decades while sampling the CS around Sebring, Redman marvels that the M2 CS outweighs his old CSL by more than half a ton. Even with roughly 100 more horsepower than the 3.0 CSL, the modern car's power-to-weight ratio is less favorable. Still, the CS accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in a mere 3.3 seconds, clearing the quarter-mile in 11.3 at 128 mph. That puts it in elite territory for front-engine, rear-wheel-drive cars, just ahead of the 760-hp Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 and slightly behind the C7 Corvette ZR1.(top) The pit straight was once a taxiway for an army airfield. Racing began here in 1950. (bottom left) Golden-hour light brings out a purple hue not unlike the one in BMW M's classic tricolor logo. (bottom right) Carbon bucket seats trimmed in merino leather come standard on the CS.Paul KingWhile the twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter lacks the frenetic bawl of BMW's best naturally aspirated inline-sixes, its barrel-chested burr and magnetic pull to redline mean it takes a superhuman level of self-control to lift once you've pinned the gas pedal to the floor. There are six selectable modes for the transmission, three levels of aggression each for automatic and manual shifting modes. The sharpest settings require full commitment to the accelerator, chirping the tires on upshifts. Under part throttle, the car jerks and lurches with each upshift. These modes are not for use on your sighting lap and are part of such a convincing impression of a dual-clutch automatic that you might be caught off guard by the ZF eight-speed's natural creep at low speeds.It's a long wander from Sebring's gates to any decent driving roads. Florida byways are numbingly flat and straight. Most turns are just 90-degree intersections. But I found a short little wriggle called Ozello Trail squirming out into the mangroves that make up the state's western shore (thanks, motorcycleroads.com). The road's elevation depends on the tidal cycle; at high tide, it's mere inches above sea level. At its terminus, it just sort of surrenders to the ocean at a boat ramp. The size of the surrounding parking lot also varies depending on the tide.Paul KingSplashing through two-lanes full of standing water puts a fine point on the adjacent sign reading "Road subject to flooding" where Ozello Trail departs from U.S. 98. Wet traction and hydroplane resistance are not the top priorities of the CS's Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2s. The tires represent a step up in aggression from the Pilot Sport 4S rubber on the standard M2 but in the same sizes, 275/35ZR-19 up front and 285/30ZR-20 out back.AdvertisementAdvertisementCompared with other cars in this performance stratosphere, that's not a lot of rubber, but the tires imbue the CS with 1.05 g's of skid pad stick and help the $8500 carbon-ceramic brakes haul it from 70 mph to a standstill in just 155 feet. More important than those impressive numbers, though, is the spectacular balance and reactivity of the CS's stiffened chassis. This car doesn't just encourage you to speed into a corner and steer through it. It rewards the driver who wants to play—to use power to alter front-to-rear load distribution and predictably and controllably vary the car's attitude into, through, and out of the turn.(top) Sebring is famous for its rough, patchwork track surface that somehow is one of the circuit's more charming attributes. (bottom left) These boots were made for racing.Paul KingThe M2 can't outrun all the faults that plague BMWs in the modern era, however. The brake pedal is progressive but not as firm in initial travel as befits a CS car, making brushing it for minor speed adjustments an inexact affair. And that's with the variable-feel pedal in Sport mode. What's it like in Comfort? I don't know. It's not terribly satisfying in Sport, so why bother with the less promising setting? That would be like BMW abandoning the "Ultimate Driving Machine" tagline for "Joy," as it did briefly from 2009 to '11. And while the steering is heavy, with a linear build in effort as cornering speeds increase, it's light on feedback. It's good grand-tourer steering, but it's not great sports-car steering.The worst of the CS's sins, though, is its infotainment system. Having neglected to personalize my driving experience before setting out for Ozello Trail, I relied heavily on the lane-keeping assist while probing countless obtuse menus to turn off lane-keeping assist. The M2 CS is not available with three pedals, but it still has That Magical Thing, the perfect balance and nearly precognitive reflexes—preflexes?—that allow it to respond instantly to every input without ever overreacting.Paul KingReturning to civilization, I pass a 911 Turbo Cabriolet headed out to enjoy the road I've just left. Envy turns to bemused superiority when I realize the CS is faster around a track than the 996 Turbo. A short while later, a Ferrari 458 Spider passes. Ditto. With its wide fenders, naked carbon-fiber roof, and ducktail decklid spoiler, the M2 CS looks the part of a proper sports car, but as a supercar slayer, it's still somehow a Q-ship. The best of the last, the M2 CS is the ultimate, ultimate Ultimate Driving Machine.Sebring International Raceway has seen many changes over the past five decades, while Redman remains in the same basic configuration.Paul KingBrian's SongThe racing legend overflows with tales of heroic feats.AdvertisementAdvertisementBrian Redman's driving career didn't even start until he was 22, and then it spanned three decades in which he raced in everything from touring cars and sports cars to Formula 1 (for six years) and Formula 5000 (with three consecutive championships from 1974 to '76). Stories spill out of him like water breaching a dam, one flowing unstoppably into the next.Not many people can pull off sideburns this grand at age 89.Paul KingRedman found his greatest success in sports-car racing. In addition to the BMW 3.0 CSL, iconic cars on Redman's résumé include the Alfa Romeo Tipo 33, the Ferrari 312PB, the Ford GT40, and Porsches 908, 917, 935, and 962. In 1970, he took first and second at the Daytona 24 Hours, having driven stints in both J.W. Automotive Porsche 917Ks.His career spanned a terrible period in the sport's history, when drivers were practically an expendable component no more precious than engines that could be blown up. Trackside at Sebring, 89-year-old Redman tells Road & Track that he lost six teammates between 1968 and '71, then relays the story of a 24-hour test with Porsche in '69. At 20 hours, he says, "the chassis broke. And the engineer says, 'This is good. The race is only 12 hours.'" The chassis broke on all five cars at the test. "One was repaired," Redman says. "It went on to finish second."Ozello Trail traverses coastal marshland. The size of nearby parking areas depends on the tide.Paul KingRedman admits to a single regret in his long career: missing out on a test at Indianapolis in '77. The week before, he'd barely survived his most horrific wreck, a mishap during a Can-Am shakedown. His car went airborne at around 160 mph and landed upside down, breaking his neck, sternum, ribs, and a collarbone. En route to the hospital, the ambulance blew a tire and crashed into a ditch. The next day, a Montreal newspaper declared him dead.Daytona, 1975. From left: Sam Posey, Hans-Joachim Stuck, Brian Redman, and Ronnie Peterson.ISC Archives/CQ-Roll Call Group - Getty ImagesHe was sidelined for nine months; his first race back was the '78 12 Hours of Sebring in a Porsche 935. He won. I ask if that was a particularly meaningful victory. He shrugs, then launches into a story from Le Mans.ILLUSTRATION BY JIM HATCHAdvertisementAdvertisementA car-lover's community for ultimate access & unrivaled experiences.JOIN NOW Hearst OwnedYou Might Also LikeIf You Can Only Own One Car, Make It One of TheseThese Are the Most Popular Cars by State
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