In the rear, the standard M5’s bench has been replaced by two more individual carbon bucket seats, which means it’s only a four-seater. But who cares? Barely anyone ever used the middle rear seat in an M5 anyway, and this way, at least the rear passengers will be just as comfortable (and held in place just as well) as those in the front.
What’s more, each rear seat has an Isofix mount, so children get to enjoy the CS along with you (indeed, your correspondent’s two-year-old daughter learned to say the phrase “fast again, please” – and, unequivocally, what it meant – from the rear seat of our test car).
In common with most other 5-Series, the rest of the interior is great, with a slick infotainment screen and easy-to-use controls; there are enough bits of carbon-fibre and lines of red stitching about the place to remind you that you’re in something a bit special, too.
On the road
There are a lot of ways you can play around with the CS’s set-up. You can make the suspension softer or firmer, adjust the throttle mapping, tweak the weight of the steering and even adjust the speed of the gearshifts, for example.
And, of course, you can switch it into two-wheel-drive mode, at which point all the power gets sent to the rear wheels instead of all four. You can turn off the traction control, too, and if you do both of these the M5 CS is particularly adept at lurid powerslides. Or so we’re given to understand; mud-strewn Kentish lanes in the depths of winter aren’t the place to attempt such antics.
Yet even in four-wheel drive mode, and with its pleasingly laissez-faire electronic aids left activated, the M5 CS shone.
It’s the front end that grabs you first. The steering is deft, precise and perfectly weighted, and it’s matched to a nose of unshakeable grip, yet one that feels light and malleable as you turn in.
What catches your attention next is the way the car’s weight shifts. Or, to be precise, the way it doesn’t. You’d never guess the CS weighs nearly two tonnes, because you can bowl it into a bend like a two-seater sports car; there’s no sense of wallowing or lean, and you never feel as though you need to let the car settle before you apply power.
Nimble – and even sensible
Indeed, the CS feels incredibly light on its feet for such a big, heavy car. You can tweak the steering or throttle however you see fit, and this four-door saloon shifts and twitches like a car half its weight, allowing you to trim your line neatly if you need to, or indulging you with a gentle, progressive and easily held tail slide if you do breach its limits (yes, even in four-wheel-drive mode).
There’s a mature side to the CS too, as it flows through a series of bends as cleanly as your talent will allow. Indeed, such is the grip available, and so well does the CS control its weight, that you find yourself starting to feed that power in before you’ve even arrived at each apex, letting that incredible front end carry you round before you floor the throttle as the corner ebbs away, to blast down the next straight.
And blast you will. It won’t surprise you to learn that acceleration in the M5 CS is a visceral, perception-warping thing, smearing the trees and hedges into a thick, green blur as your head fills with the full-throated, warbling snarl that that V8 produces, and you grip the wheel more tightly lest your fingers be pried from it.
Mind-blowing performance
But in these days of common-or-garden EVs that can accelerate to 62mph almost as quickly, it isn’t the CS’s off-the-line pace that grabs you. What really blows your mind is the way its rate of acceleration barely seems to stint as the speedometer winds its way to licence-losing figures; even at motorway speeds, where one of those fast EVs might start to tail off, the CS just romps on, and it honestly feels as though nothing but a force of nature could slow it down.
Of course, that’s why BMW has fitted the carbon-ceramic brakes you’d normally find on the options list of the standard M5. Such things can sometimes be a bit of a pain to use every day – they’re often squeaky at slow speeds and lacking in feel until they’re warmed up, which takes some serious punishment. Not here, though – in fact, you’re only able to tell they’re there when it dawns on you after half an hour of hard driving that the brakes are just as strong and as positive underfoot as they were when you started out.
The Telegraph verdict
It’s pretty good, then, the M5 CS. But £140,000 good? Well… it sort-of is, actually.
Yes, on the face of it this is a crazy amount of money to spend on such a car. But the fact BMW has already taken deposits on the whole of the UK’s allocation shows that people are willing to pay that price.
And while I might not join them, equally, I don’t blame them. The M5 CS has all the performance and dynamic ability of a supercar – yes, it really is that good. And supercars simply don’t come cheap, even when they’re clothed in a saloon body.
What’s more, that four-door saloon body – not to mention BMW’s remarkable sleight of hand in making the CS comfortable and usable enough for the daily grind or regular motorway journeys – means this is a supercar you genuinely can use every day, even if you have a family.
Not that many people will, of course, because the chances are most CSs will likely be locked away behind closed doors – to appreciate, rather than to be appreciated. Which is a great shame, because this is the most complete and most exciting M5 since the original. And that, in turn, makes it one of the finest cars BMW has ever made.
Telegraph rating: Five stars out of five
The facts
On test: BMW M5 CS
Body style: four-door saloon
On sale: now (currently sold out)
How much? £140,780
How fast? 189mph, 0-62mph in 3.0sec
How economical? 25.0mpg (WLTP Combined)
Engine & gearbox: 4,395cc V8 twin-turbo petrol engine, eight-speed automatic gearbox, four-wheel drive
Maximum power/torque: 626bhp/553lb ft
CO2 emissions: 256g/km
VED: £2,245 first year, £490 next five years, then £155
Warranty: 3 years /unlimited miles
Spare wheel as standard: No (not available)
The rivals
Porsche Panamera Turbo S
621bhp, 21.4mpg, £139,490 on the road
