BMW will have a busy few days in California in August as it celebrates the 50th anniversary of the M brand at the famed Monterey Car Week. There, it will display a number of race cars, performance cars, and, for the first time in the United States, the M4 CSL.
The new model gets another 40 hp (30 kW/40.5 PS) over the M4 Competition and loses 240 lbs (109 kg), as compared to the already high-performance coupe. That was enough to get the M4 CSL around the Nürburgring in 7:20.2, the fastest lap time a production BMW has ever clocked around the fearsome track.
The new model just kicked off production in July and will be limited to just 1,000 examples. That may, in part, explain why it has a price tag of $140,985 (with $995 destination fee) in the U.S. The M4 CSL will be presented at the Legends of the Autobahn event on Thursday, August 18 at the Pacific Grove Golf Links.
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There, it will be joined by over 300 classic and modern BMWs that are expected to be exhibited, too. Along with the M4 CSL, the automaker will be bringing the 2023 M8 Competition coupe, the i4 M50, and the iX M60. From the classics department, meanwhile, BMW will show a 1973 3.0 CSL.
In addition, the brand will celebrate its motorsports past at the Rolex Monterey Reunion at Weather Raceway Laguna Seca. The event is looking back at 100 years of Le Mans, an event at which the Bavarian automaker has had much success.
It will, therefore, be showing off a 1975 3.0 CSL IMSA Group 4 “Batmobile,” the car that kicked off the M motorsport brand and earned overall victories at the 12 Hours of Sebring and the 24 Hours of Daytona, as well as three class wins at Le Mans.
The brand will also bring a 1981 IMSA M1 Group 3, a 1999 BMW V12 LMR, and a McLaren F1 GTR (which was powered by a BMW engine). It will also show off BMW M8 GTE Chassis number 1809, which won its class at the 2020 Rolex 24 at Daytona, and which it has made the rare decision to sell to a lucky collector.
To cap the event off, the BMW V12 LMR and the M4 CSL will take part in the newly created Corkscrew Hillclimb. The event is being run for the first time ever this year, and it will see cars line up at Laguna Seca’s start finish line, but facing the wrong direction. From there, they’ll go racing up the track’s famed “Corkscrew” chicane to a finish line at the top of the corner.
Just the latest event in BMW’s celebration of its M brand’s 50th anniversary, fans will have the opportunity to appreciate the automaker’s engineering throughout Monterey Car Week, which kicks off on August 12.
