The BMW M3 CSL is the closest incarnation to what is arguably the best performance car BMW ever produced both on the track and the road – the first generation M3. With only 1383 M3 CSLs ever produced, values can only go up.
Even when it was released in 2003 the M3 CSL was an impractical car. The front seats’ backrests are set permanently in a rather upright position and with an overly firm ride which can be rather harsh (to, put it mildly), this is definitely not an everyday car. It came with virtually no accessories, for a R940 000 car you had to tick the xenon lights and park-distance-control boxes as extras. You were also required to make it known if you wanted air-conditioning and a radio and that was as generous as it got. In an emissions free, fuel efficiency obsessed society we live in, the CSL almost seems totally out of place.
But did Paris need the Eiffel tower, did New York need the Statue of Liberty (which by the way they got from the French), and what has the Brandenburg Gate ever done for Berliners? And yet we cannot imagine a world without them and the same can be said about the CSL, for on the right roads under the right conditions this is motoring Nirvana. So is it worth investing in one, or is one’s hard- earned cash better left offshore?
