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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 other day an Alpine White M2 briskly blew past me. It’s amazing how much presence that car has rolling down the road; it’s nearly square-looking and quite mean. Unlike the 1M that preceded it, the M2 hasn’t maintained its pricing on the used market in quite the same way. Right now, the M2 Competition (your only option) stickers at nearly $60,000 with no options but also has a derivative of the S55 from the M3/4. The earlier M2s aren’t quite as mean, and like the 1M they had a turned up version of the normal production motor rather than a “S†motor. In this case, it’s a 370 horsepower version of the N55 and they weigh a bit less than the M3/4 (though, only a bit), so performance is on par with similar acceleration numbers. Equipped in lovely Long Beach Blue Metallic with matching contrasting stitching, this particular example also has the ‘slower’ but preferable long-term 6-speed manual. And to make it a bit more sweet, it’s got a few Dinan mods tacked on:
Another model missing from the ‘EAG Legends Collection‘ was undoubtedly the 2002. What really should have been there was another early cutting of the Motorsport division teeth – the 2002 Turbo. Like the 3.0CSL, this was an engineering exercise to flex their muscles. The 2002 Turbo was one of the first turbocharged production cars, and while it was a full decade behind GM’s ‘Jetfire’ turbo V8, it produced nearly as much power as the much larger 3.5 liter V8. Slapping a KKK turbocharger to the Kugelfischer-injected 2.0 M10 yielded 170 horsepower and 180 lb.ft of torque making the 2002 turbo a bit of a giant killer.
With only 1,672 Turbos produced, you’re not likely to come across one today. If you do, you’re also not likely to be able to afford it. So today’s 2002 is, like yesterday, a resto-mod rather than an original. This one takes the equation to 11 though, and adds a dose of “M” dna into this beefed-up E10. Ever wonder where all the S14s from M50/52 swapped M3s went? Well, one went right here:
Often we ignore really modern cars on these pages. It’s not necessarily that they’re not exciting – often it’s quite the opposite. For me, it’s just that they’re not exciting to see for sale because they’re still effectively cars that you can walk into a dealership and buy. And I’m sorry, while they can thoroughly out-perform older cars in virtually every way, you can’t just walk into an Audi dealer and buy a brand new Quattro, can you!
But impressive these cars are, and if you can look into the future in having one as a potential special car to see in the future, you can balance a hefty discount from new with near-new status and have quite a savings over stock, too. Two encounters with modern BMWs recently have my eyes trained on the pair you see here; the M4 and the M2. For around the same discount sticker price, which is the one to get?
