2022 BMW M5 CSBring A Trailer

BMW has a back catalog to rival The Beatles. The Bavarian company traces its history back to 1916 and has turned its hand to everything from fast hatchbacks to futuristic supercars, with a Midas touch for blending performance, handling, and quality. But in recent years, BMW also created a muscle car of sorts, and it turned out to be one of the fastest of its kind. It isn’t just quick for a sedan; it would be quick even if it were a supercar with the engine in the middle.

The fact that this German muscle sedan can seat four adults comfortably, blast between meetings in comfort, and do pretty much everything a normal car can do, makes the case for it being possibly the only car you’ll ever need. And the best bit? They aren’t that expensive to buy either, considering it is essentially a supercar with four doors. This is the time when Germany made a muscle sedan – and it could just be one of the last of its kind.

The F90 BMW M5 CS Is A Family-Friendly Supercar

0-60 MPH: 2.6 Seconds

Front 3/4 pic of a BMW M5 CSBMW

There had been sleeper cars in the past, but when the BMW M5 arrived in 1985, the German company seemed to have come up with the recipe for the special sauce. Prior to the M5, the M535i had been seen as the pinnacle of upmarket, quick sedans, but the M5 turned this up to 11. The M5 packs a 3.5-liter inline 6-cylinder producing 286 horsepower - that would have been a lot in a ’90s Subaru Impreza, let alone a ’80s 5-Series – that had been developed for the legendary BMW M1 supercar. The next M5, the E34, smashed it out of the park, with an inline 6-cylinder engine that developed 315 and later 340 horsepower.

For many, the pinnacle of the M5 recipe was the E39 model, with its rampant V8, before things just went crazy with the F1-inspired 507-horsepower V10 in the E60. After that, BMW started to downsize the engines, and while the M5 continued, it could be argued that the models never quite had the iconic pop culture appeal of their predecessors. That doesn’t mean they weren’t any good, however. Possibly, maybe, arguably...the best M5 was actually one that arrived much later; it’s just that some people might have forgotten that it existed.

The CS Is An Evolution Of The M5

Pic of a BMW M5 CSBMW

The new BMW M5 F90 was introduced in 2017, fitted with a 4.4-liter V8 engine with BMW M TwinPower Turbo technology. The standard car was hardly lacking in power, with 600 horsepower in the BMW M5 and a mighty 625 horsepower in the BMW M5 Competition model. The latter was a true super sedan, reaching 60 mph in 3.3 seconds, so BMW’s M-Division could have been excused if they wanted to switch off the lights in the engineering department and take a few days off. But they didn’t. They went back to the drawing board to create the most powerful BMW M5 Sedan ever built. This would be called the M5 CS, and while it still had all the practicality of a standard M5, it was lighter, faster, and even better than the standard car.

A Closer Look At The BMW M5 CS

Engine pic of a BMW M5 CSBMW

BMW might not have set out with the specific intention of creating a muscle sedan that could out-muscle all the rest, but that’s what it ended up with. The F90 M5 has all the hallmarks of a muscle car, with a big V8 (albeit turbocharged), and rear-wheel drive. Wait...it’s fitted with the newly developed all-wheel drive M xDrive, right? Yes, so whenever you need it, the M5 is all-wheel-drive, for safety and traction, but BMW even thought about those staunch rear-drive fans of M5s of old, and allowed the system to be switched to rear-drive only if so desired. This Swiss Army Knife of a car really had thought of everything.

Then came all the CS bits. The Competition Sport badge has a rich history that includes the legendary 3.0 CS, so BMW knew that it had to do it justice. This wouldn’t just be a case of binning the radio and calling it a day. Oh no. The company used a clever material mix with carbon fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP) along with special lightweight construction measures to reduce the weight of the BMW M5 CS. Look closely, and there is an exclusive carbon bonnet with exposed carbon fiber air ducts. The front splitter, rear spoiler, exterior mirror caps, rear diffuser, M Power engine compartment cover, and intake silencer are made from carbon fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP). All the weight-saving measures equate to a 154-lb weight reduction compared to the BMW M5 Competition.

Everything About The M5 CS Is Special

Interior pic of a BMW M5 CSBMW

The twin-turbo V8 is mildly tweaked to produce 635 horsepower, with torque staying the same as the Competition at 553 lb-ft. The M5 CS also gets as standard a stainless-steel sports exhaust system with four unadorned tailpipes and M Carbon ceramic brakes, with calipers painted in Red as standard or Gold as an option.

Inside, there are carbon seats covered in Merino leather, with decorative stitching in Mugello Red. The integral head restraints have illuminated M5 logos for the front seats and show an outline of the Nürburgring circuit. The net result of all this was a more focused M5 that also channeled the boisterous nature of a pure muscle car, while being honed for the track.

Here’s How Quick An M5 CS Is

2005 Bugatti Veyron supercar driving in desert, front 3/4 angleBugatti

BMW M5 CS Vs Bugatti Veyron

	2021 BMW M5 CS	2008 Bugatti Veyron 16.4
Engine	4.4-liter Twin-Turbo V8	8-liter quad-turbocharged W16
Power	635 horsepower	1001 horsepower
Torque	553 lb-ft	922 lb-ft
0-60 mph	2.6 seconds	2.5 seconds
Quarter Mile	10.6 seconds	10.1 seconds

The M5 CS is quick, right? Wrong. The M5 CS is devastatingly fast, by almost any standard. Just remember, this is not some electric-assisted hybrid that gives a big whoosh of electric torque to get you off the line; it’s old-school ICE V8 power. So the fact that the M5 has been tested to 60 mph in a staggering 2.6 seconds is all the more impressive. The big Beemer sedan will keep going to 100 mph in 6.2 seconds, and will top out at around 190 mph. The quarter mile is demolished in 10.6 seconds.

These acceleration figures aren’t just supercar quick, they are hypercar quick. Let’s stop for a second and remind ourselves that the 2008 Bugatti Veyron 16.4 — a car that cost $1,657,700 and set a new bar for hypercar performance — hits 60 mph in 2.5 seconds, so just a shade quicker than the M5 CS. The Veyron’s engine is literally almost double the size and double the turbos of the M5. Even the Veyron’s quarter mile of 10.1 seconds is even that much quicker than the BMW. To put it another way, the M5 CS is faster than a McLaren F1 over the quarter mile.

The BMW M5 CS’s Values Are Rock Solid

Front three quarter pic of a BMW M5 CS 2022Bring A Trailer

The BMW M5 CS cost an incredible $143,995 when it was launched in 2021 (it was only around for two years), so it wasn’t exactly throwaway money. Turns out that was a pretty shrewd investment, as prices are even higher secondhand. The M5 CS is pretty rare, with reputable sources such as BMWblog.com saying that of 1,000 built, just 400 made it to the USA. This has kept prices high, with 2022 models selling for an average of $157,714. That’s a lot of money for a secondhand BMW, but not much considering it’s a hypercar in disguise.

Source: BMW.