I really like BMW’s CS cars because they have no qualms about what they are. Some modern M cars, like the M2, can at times feel a little awkward. If you’re driving it just a little naughtily, like most of us do, it’s unsure of how to respond to that; unsure if it needs to keep the Clark Kent glasses on, or become Superman. The CS cars are, for better or worse, always set to Superman mode, and the 2026 BMW M2 CS is the latest BMW to be subject to CS-ification. And, much like seeing a man in blue spandex and a red cape might get a chortle out of you because it’s absurd, it had me giggling every time I walked up to it.

Donning the cape

The “regular” BMW M2 isn’t exactly a subtle car, but the M2 CS takes that and dials up to an almost-ostentatious degree, but in a lovable way. The box fender flares are exaggerated by the same gold double-staggered wheels we’ve seen on other CS cars, and the massive intakes are made all the more obnoxious by having their grilles removed, leaving monster maws in their place. A new carbon-fiber trunk with an integrated ducktail spoiler and an aggressive diffuser act as the cape for this outfit, and I love that you can see the trunk’s carbon weave through the paint. The colour-shifting Velvet Blue paint and bright red badges send it over the top in the best way; it wasn’t just me that loved it, everyone on the road did, too. You’d give Superman a thumbs up too, right?

Before you fire it up, you have to clamber into it. It’s a bit of an ordeal unto itself, thanks to those aforementioned high-bolster carbon-backed bucket seats. If all the aggressive visual cues didn’t give it away, the M2 CS is very serious about being a performance machine, and serious performance machines have serious seats to keep their pilots fixed in place during extreme maneuvers. 

In the cockpit

Where the “base” M2 feels like a nice car, the M2 CS feels like a battle station. Beyond the carbon bucket chairs, which never stop being silly to get in and out of, the entire centre console is carbon, as are the dashboard and door card inserts, which feature illuminated CS logos behind the carbon weave. The steering wheel is a meaty donut wrapped in grippy Alcanatara, which I usually don’t care for, but it’s an appropriate helm for this thing. 

It’s very purposeful to be sure, but not overly austere. A hundred pounds have been shaved off through extensive use of carbonized twill, but it’s still a BMW; leave it to them to design a lightweight racing-style seat with powered adjustment and heating elements. It still has rear seats that aren’t too snug. It still has really slick infotainment, driver assistance tech, and a healthy Harmon Kardon sound system. Were it not for the extremely summer-centric Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires fitted as standard equipment, you could almost use this every day.

Feet and feats of strength

Said summer shoes were not happy trying to reign in the M2 CS’s extra-spicy spec “S58” engine on cold November pavement. This 3.0-litre twin-turbocharged straight-six produces an alleged 523 horsepower and 479 foot-pounds of torque; I say alleged because in typical BMW fashion, those numbers feel very sandbagged. Moreover, being that this engine has real roots in motorsport, it’s built not to just make silly amounts of power, but to make that power consistently over the course of sustained track lapping sessions. You may have noticed the litany of heat exchangers unsubtly hidden behind the absent grilles.

I can’t speak much to its prowess as a track-terrorizing monster because, as I mentioned, I drove this over the course of the last few days before the snow started flying in Toronto. Cars like the M2 CS are BMW’s answer to Porsche’s RS cars, and they carry a hardware list with sufficient badassery that I have no doubt that they can go out and play alongside the best of ‘em. What’s more impressive is that track-optimized cars are usually a little bit of a letdown on the street, but this M2 CS remains delicious and devilish at all times.

Fun with weapons

Every part of the M2 CS experience is designed around theatre; around amplifying the experience of merely piloting a car into an event. If falling into the seats didn’t set the tone enough, firing up the engine will. It is permanently pissed off, and lets you know immediately with an irritated bwarr right from the get-go. Even the ZF 8-speed feels furious, engaging from every stop abruptly, very much like the dearly departed M-DCT gearbox. 

This engine has no traditional mechanical throttle, and without that hangup in the way, and no pretense of modesty left in its programming, response from the skinny pedal is rabid. It builds boost alarmingly quickly, and as such always feels torquey and flexible. It keeps building exponentially into a huge whack of boost, simultaneously combining the tractability of modern engineering and the scary-fun yikes of old-school turbo lag. In its sportiest modes, it can at times feel like a runaway boost condition. It’s an intoxicating thrill that should be wrong, except it’s so much fun.

Being manhandled

The chassis is every bit as ravenous as the powertrain. I’ve said it before, and I’ve not found a better word for it: everything this car does is urgent. The steering is so quick that it’s alarming, and can even take some time to adjust to. Every misplaced movement of the razor-sharp rack results in an immediate shimmy that rocks you in your seat. 

It is incredibly communicative and dialled in, to a point where even freshly painted lines on the highway will produce a distinct feedback through your seat and the steering wheel. If you’re not ready for it, it can be unnerving to have so much feedback relayed to you. I personally love this, as steering feedback is nice to have, but being able to feel exactly what the front and rear suspension are doing through your whole body is vital. It all adds to the exaggerated experience of the car.

I’d like to revisit this either on warmer pavement or on milder tires, which I’m aware would be antithetical to its mission statement, because it was hard to get a read on the car’s transient behaviour. There’s a massive surplus of grip, it feels well-balanced yet easily able to induce oversteer with the skinny pedal, and despite having only two driven wheels, it doesn’t feel quite as spookily edgy as I expected. But there’s no denying it was quite spooky on summer shoes at the cusp of snow season. I was cautioned that “she bites,” and that was no joke.

I remember thinking the xDrive-equipped M4 CS was borderline undriveable in rear-drive mode around this same time of year. Here, it feels like BMW has done a good job dialling in the M2 CS to accommodate for the absence of an all-wheel-drive safety net. Its dynamic traction control can make you look and feel like a hero, but it demands some pretty heroic cojones to wrangle it confidently with the digital safety nets out of the way. Its sideways shimmies can be very unnerving at speed, and I can’t tell if it’s a bug or a feature. More study is required in warmer weather, but I’m inclined to fault myself and/or the conditions before the car.

Uninhibited, but not untameable

For all this ferocity, it’s not unbearable to putter around in. Leave the M2 CS in its mildest modes and it’s … well, it’s never a normal car, so to speak. You’re always being jostled, but it’s well controlled and incredibly well absorbed. You hit a bump, there’s a dull audible thud, the car reacts instantly and makes you feel the reaction through the seat, and then it resets, all in the span of a split second. It can feel rough at first, but there’s no secondary vibrations, no wallowing, just stimulus, response, reset, repeat. It’s not even that loud, save for any gravel being flung against the undercarriage from the sticky tires. 

A car that excels on track is not necessarily a fun car; those traits can often be mutually exclusive. What’s so impressive about the 2026 BMW M2 CS is that is takes all the fizzy fun we expect of a track car, and translates that into a streetable experience that is no less potent of a weapon. It’s a ridiculous, characterful, memorable drive, and it looks like the best kind of wacky, not unlike an exceptionally fit man in blue spandex with a red cape. Forget RS, get yourself a CS.

Wrap it up

Only 81 of these cars are earmarked for Canada, with a starting price of $125,000. Our tester, with its (glorious) paint and optional carbon ceramic brakes, rings in at $139,000, which makes it roughly one Hyundai Elantra N TCR ($47,599) more dear than the last M2 we drove. Making it make sense in strict rational terms isn’t easy, but there is something to be said for exclusivity. More than that, there’s something to be said for a machine that was consistently able to pierce through the gloomy Gales of November and be a ridiculous hero for me over and over again. I’d pay anything for that.