Price as tested: £134,747.50 | On sale: now
We might as well get this out of the way early on: the new BMW M3 CS Touring costs £126,275. To save you the maths, that’s a £32,690 premium over a regular M3 Competition Touring. For the same price as the CS, you could buy one of those plus a base-spec BMW 1 Series and still have £65 left over.
You can pay more than that if you like, too. Our test car had a handful of options, including carbon ceramic brakes for £8800, inflating the total figure to £134,747. Apologies if you were mid-mouthful of tea while reading that and your phone screen is now somewhat splattered.
The price doesn’t come as a shock to us, though. The M3 CS saloon, which BMW launched in 2023, was also subject to a similarly punchy premium over the regular M3 Competition. And the recipe is much the same here. It has more aggressive suspension geometry plus new springs, while the software for the adaptive dampers, electric power steering and the all-wheel drive system has been tweaked. 
BMW has also sought to trim a bit of fat from the M3 Touring by switching the bonnet, front splitter and rear diffuser for carbon fibre parts, while swapping the centre console for a new carbon fibre unit with no armrest or cupholders. The result is a reduction of…15kg, which feels pretty tokenistic in a car weighing the best part of 1900kg.
It’s a similar story when it comes to the power output from the twin-turbocharged six-cylinder engine, which now produces 550PS, up from…530PS. The torque output is unchanged at 650Nm.
The power bump is at least enough to shave a tenth of a second from the 0-62mph time, which is now 3.5 seconds while the top speed has risen from 173mph (on an M3 Touring with the M Driver’s package) to 186mph.
Over £30k seems like a lot to spend to slash a tenth from the 0-62mph time and add 13mph to the top speed, but that’s not why you’re spending the extra. Nor is it the ‘871’ gold 19-inch front/20-inch rear wheels (which do look fab). No – you’re splurging because of the way the M3 CS Touring handles.
It’s much the same as the CS saloon. And that’s to say, rather marvellous. All of those chassis changes add up to something that feels noticeably sharper and happier to be thrown around. There’s an extra layer of connection to what’s going on underneath, especially the steering. At times it is quite aggressive in the feedback it gets with the occasional bit of kickback through the wheel, much as you get with a Porsche 911 GT3. 
Actually, that’s a good way of looking at the M3 CS Touring – like a 911 GT3 but with a big interior and a 500-litre boot. It simply doesn’t have an obvious rival. It never, ever feels anything like as heavy as it really is and the front end is almost unnervingly quick to change direction.
Although it’s all-wheel drive, the system is still very happy to put a lot of power to the rear, even in its standard setting. As with the standard M3 Touring, you can make things spicier still with the ‘4WD Sport’ mode, or by ditching power to the front wheels entirely with the RWD setting. That involves turning off the traction control as well which might make for expensive tyre bills.
On the subject of modes, the CS remains just as bafflingly complex, with multiple settings for things like the engine, gearbox, suspension and even the brakes, as well as the aforementioned all-wheel drive setups. It will take you some time to work out your preferences, but we have at least fathomed that Comfort suspension setup is the way to go on all but the smoothest of roads, because the CS is noticeably firmer than the regular M3 Comp.
The low-speed ride can get quite choppy over speed bumps and the like, but it seems like an acceptable pay-off for how well the car drives elsewhere. But does the M3 CS Touring justify the extra outlay? That’s harder to say. We do, however, reckon it’s the best M car you can buy right now.
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