BMW’s M4 CS Returns for 2025 with AWD, Real Door Handles

When does five come after two but before three? When you’re BMW, and you’re introducing the CS special editions.

CS stands for Competition Sport, and since the 2019 model year, the acronym has designated a performance version of a BMW car (not SUV, thankfully) that slots above the venerable M variant but below a barely street-legal version. (When BMW rolled out the first CS model, that top dog was the M4 GTS. More recently, in the M4 hierarchy, it’s the CSL.)

Today, we meet the latest Competition Sport model, and the second M4 to wear the CS badge: The limited-run, $124,675, 2025 M4 CS. (It follows the M2 CS, which we met in 2019; the M5 CS, in 2021; and the M3 CS, in 2023.)

Like all the hottest M4s, the two-door is powered by a twin-turbo straight-six. Like all other CS models (in the 2-, 3-, and 5-Series lineups), its roof and hood, along with the rear spoiler and diffuser, are made of carbon fiber to lower the curb weight below that of the M-badged Competition version. Unlike the hottest M4, the CSL, the CS is only available with an eight-speed automatic transmission.

Yes, it’s an expensive proposition: $40,500 more than the M4 Competition. However, if the recent proliferation of limited-run, special-edition performance cars from BMW tells us anything, it’s that the brand’s customers will pay dearly to have a BMW performance car that the masses can’t get their hands on. And a price gap of over $40K from an M4 Comp is a remarkably effective way of ensuring a smaller audience.

Compare the 2025 M4 CS to its 2019 predecessor, and you can see how BMW has refined the CS recipe. Most obviously, CS now means all-wheel-drive. The more recent version is also far more powerful: 543 hp and 479 lb-ft of torque, vs 460 hp and 442 lb-ft. Those differences combine for a remarkably quicker ‘Ring time: 7:21.99 versus 7:38.

Adjusted for inflation, the G82-generation CS costs about $2500 more than the F82 one, but the gap between it and the next M-badged version down the ladder is slightly larger: 20, rather than 10 more horsepower; and 77, rather than just 33 pounds, lighter. From a cursory look at the interior through the press photography, BMW doesn’t seem to have stripped back the door panels to such spartan levels as it did for the first M4 CS: On the doors of the 2025 version, you’ll be touching black leather, not “compacted natural fibers.” You even get door handles this time—real ones, with hinges, not pull loops! Take that, Porsche.

A note, for track rats: The 2025 M4 CS now comes standard with the less aggressive tire, reversing the order strategy of its predecessor. If you want the “ultra-track” option, which from this press photo appears to be a PS Cup 2, BMW will swap them out at no cost.

Orders for the 2025 M4 CS open at the end of this month, and production starts in Germany at the Dingolfing plant in July.

BMW collectors, give us your thoughts: Does the 2025 M4 CS belong in a stable of significant modern M cars?

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