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If the lack of a ‘true’ M-branded motor in the M2 was just too much for your ego to take, BMW offered you two solutions to up the ante. The M2 Competition borrowed the S55 motor and upgraded a few bits, giving you right around 400 horsepower and matching torque to play with. You can grab one for about a 20-25% premium over a M2. Not enough? BMW didn’t think so, either. Enter the 2020 BMW M2 CS. The CS also borrowed bits, but this time from the upgraded Competition Package F8X M3/4 – meaning you now had 10% more horsepower at 444. They also chopped some weight off, added some fantastic gold wheels, threw in some special trim, and limited the number being imported. The result? A very special – and very expensive – 2-Series:
The 128i was, effectively, just about the same package as the 135i, but turned down a few notches. It was a little less hardcore, and a little more GT. Power came not from the twin turbo N54 or twin scroll N55, but from the N52 and N51, here rated at 230 horsepower. You could opt for a six-speed manual transmission, too, and packages late in the run included the M Sport option, which gave you the same M Sport Suspension found in its bigger brother, along with effectively the same interior, trim, and 17″ sport wheels. But if anything finding a clean 128i M Sport is even harder than locating an un-modded 135i – and this particular one looks great…with just one fatal flaw:
If you wanted a crazy modified European car in the 80s, you had a lot of choices to make. Built to resemble wildly flared racers, cars from manufacturers like DP Motorsports, Gemballa and Strosek are at best polarizing cars. At worst, they’re like the plot line to Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex; kill your father, marry your mother and have your sister-daughters, then stab your eyes out and live in a cave. But the Rex himself must certainly be defined as Willy König, with his widebody, Testarossa-straked creations. While usually we see Mercedes-Benz and Porsche versions of Koenig modified cars, today we get a rare glimpse of what he’d do to a E24.
I’m not done with M3s yet! I get that the wild colors offered by BMW on the E46 M3 don’t appeal to everyone, and I’m aware they tend to be the colors I focus on. What’s special about them to me is that they exist at all; you don’t have to agree that they’re the colors you’d buy, but isn’t the world a better place for them having been made? While getting into any M car is a special experience, by the time of the E36 and E46 M3s production numbers meant they were reasonably common. With over 71,000 E36s made and over 85,000 E46s produced, odds of you seeing another going down the road are a lot better than they were with the original Ms. To me, Phoenix Yellow and Laguna Seca Blue are two of the best ways to differentiate your M experience from the norm. Today, there’s a lovely example of the latter available on eBay:
The E31 was BMW’s first real attempt at integrating lots of computer designs and controls into one of their road cars. The clean-sheet design resulted in a 2-door grand tourer that shared some visual similarities with the great M1, but stood apart as a more practical cruiser. Unlike the E24, the windows could fully drop, revealing a graceful pillarless design to match the sweeping greenhouse. The sharp nose amazingly hid an even larger motor than its predecessor; in fact, it was basically two conjoined M20s. That configuration certainly has some drawbacks, but there was no denying that the 850i had serious presence and credentials with the M70 V12 kicking out 300 horsepower.
However, BMW softened the character of what potentially could have been a screamer. Many were outfit with 16″ wheels for a better ride and tied to an automatic transmission. This was truly a GT car, and not the supercar slayer that BMW teased with its M8 Concept. That vision ultimately became the manual-only 850CSi, but upgrades later in the run saw the introduction of the V8 840Ci and the revised M73 5.4 liter V12 in the 850Ci. This one is a bit special, having run through the hands of BMW’s Individual department before being sent to Mexico:
