I\u2019ve said it countless times since driving it: the BMW M5 CS<\/a> is the best driving BMW in at least two decades. It\u2019s a sensational driver\u2019s car, despite weighing two tons, having four doors, and seating four adult passengers. It\u2019s an incredible achievement and a masterpiece of modern automotive engineering. But it\u2019s been some time since I\u2019ve driven it, so I was starting to think that maybe nostalgia was skewing my judgement. Until I drove the new M4 CSL and realized how right I still was about its older sibling.<\/p>\n

Driving the M4 CSL is like amplifying the absolute best and worst things about modern BMWs. All of the things BMW does right\u2014grip, performance, capability, and approachability\u2014the M4 CSL gets extremely<\/em> right. Few road cars can go down a twisty road at the pace an M4 CSL<\/a> can. However, all of this things BMW gets wrong nowadays\u2014lack of steering feel, lack of character in its engine noise, and poor value\u2014it gets extremely<\/em> wrong. The M4 CSL\u2019s front end is about as sharp as I\u2019ve ever felt but it\u2019s dead inside, it feels like an M4 Competition with S&M seats, and its price puts it in competition with far better driver\u2019s cars.<\/p>\n

Which is why I appreciate the M5 CS more than ever before. Thirty seconds in the M5 CS and you immediately realize you\u2019re in something special. It\u2019s hard to quantify but the differences between the M5 CS and an M5 Competition are so immediately noticeable that it\u2019s hard to understand how the two cars are related. There\u2019s a fluidity and a life to the M5 CS, it has a character, and it feels special.<\/p>\n

But it also gets the nerdy stuff right, like horsepower and 0-60 mph times. The M5 CS is bonkers-fast, hitting 60 mph in under three seconds and nailing 10-second quarter miles. However, its speed is literally the least exciting thing about it and that\u2019s what makes it special. You don\u2019t want to drive an M5 CS for its performance, you want to drive it because of how it makes you feel. How BMW was able to extract that sort of feeling from the completely emotionally dead F90 M5 is beyond my comprehension. However, I do know that BMW wasn\u2019t able to do the same with the M4 CSL.<\/p>\n

If I had unlimited money and could only buy one relatively recent BMW, I\u2019d go for the M5 CS and wouldn\u2019t even blink. It\u2019s the best sport sedan I\u2019ve ever driven and, despite being the less sporty configuration, it\u2019s even a better sports car than the M4 CSL. That\u2019s my hot take.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve said it countless times since driving it: the BMW M5 CS is the best driving BMW in at least two decades. It\u2019s a sensational driver\u2019s car, despite weighing two tons, having four doors, and seating four adult passengers. It\u2019s an incredible achievement and a masterpiece of modern automotive engineering. But it\u2019s been some time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":36732,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}