BMW Celebrates 25 Years of M5 With One You Can't Buy

To the uninitiated, BMW’s M-division may represent the ultimate in BMW performance. But, long before M ever existed, BMW used a different collection of letters to designate their top performance model: CSL.

Perhaps best represented by the old 3.0 CSL of racing fame, the letters designated only the most potent of vehicles. Lightweight, retuned, and significantly faster than nearly anything, the CSLs were, for all intents and purposes, road-going race cars. However, the CSL nameplate has been relatively underused by the folks at Bimmer. Last seen on a special variant of the M3 that took the term hard-core to a whole new level, there are currently no BMWs worthy of the CSL badge in the brand’s lineup.

But, to celebrate the 25th year of the M5’s existence, BMW has seen fit to produce just one more CSL based upon the current M5. Stripped of 110 pounds (carbon roof, front seats, and no rear seat) and equipped with a 580 horsepower variant of the V10 powerplant backed by the 7-speed Getrag gearbox from the M3, the M5 CSL laps the Nurburgring roughly 20 seconds faster than the standard model. Sadly, the car is a one-off and will not be available for purchase.