The BMW M2 CS will be here next year, with a racecar twin

BMW M boss Markus Flasch has already confirmed the next M3 will get a manual gearbox. And now he’s telling us an M2 CS is just around the corner, with a racecar twin. It’s like his product planners have tapped right into our heads.

“We pick and choose from the BMW shelves, and we don’t have to do M cars of every variant,” he told us at the Frankfurt motor show.

“What we will see are more special models than we have today. You are aware of the CS and the GTS of the M4 and M3; we are looking at doing more of those derivatives, and not just of the models you see today.”

The M2 seems ripe for it, we suggest. “Good assumption,” he responds. “Look at what we’ve done with the CS of an M4 and you get a good impression of how it’ll be.”

So rather than being a fully stripped-out track special, it’ll be a four-seat coupe with lightweight flourishes (fabric door pulls, skinnier sports seats) and a harder-edged straight-six engine driving the rear wheels, likely through a DCT paddleshift gearbox only.

That last point seems all the more likely when Flasch tells us a customer racecar based on the M2 will arrive at the same time, replacing the vastly successful M235i and M240i racers that seem to make up half of the Nürburgring 24-hour grid each year. We’ll see both at the beginning of next year.

There won’t be a proper M version of the 1 Series to take down the Mercedes-AMG A45 and Audi RS3, though.

“We have the M version of the 1 Series with the M135i,” he says, “and we have the M2 which is one of the most iconic M cars we have ever done. If it’s up to me I will keep it this way.”

Further proving Flasch knows exactly what we want from an M car, he’s even hinted the M estate car could return. Just not any time soon.

“I like the question,” he says. “I’m Austrian, and in Austria high performance Tourings are a great solution. Globally the demand is currently not so high, but it’s under constant evaluation. I have no current plan but I wouldn’t rule it out.”

We take the BMW M4 CS to meet Ireland's mad road racers