Tag Archives: BMW

Restomod

This BMW E9 CSL Restomod Is the V8-Powered M Car BMW Never Built

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The BMW E9 CSL occupies a sacred place in the brand’s history. Lightweight, elegant, and instantly recognizable thanks to its dramatic “Batmobile” aero package, it remains one of Munich’s most celebrated performance cars. Yet for all its motorsport pedigree, the original CSL never enjoyed the kind of power modern enthusiasts crave.

That’s where this remarkable one-off creation comes in.

Built roughly a decade ago by German workshop MKO, founded by BMW enthusiast Michael Oberhauser, this machine answers a question nobody at BMW ever officially dared ask: What if an E9 CSL had been developed using the heart and soul of an E39 M5?

The answer is sitting before us in steel, aluminum, and hand-crafted ingenuity.

Rather than performing a simple engine swap, MKO essentially merged two generations of BMW performance legends into a single cohesive package. The project reportedly began with an E39 M5 and components sourced from two E9 CS coupes. What followed was a painstaking transformation that blended 1970s styling with the engineering of one of BMW’s greatest modern sports sedans.

The surgery went far beyond cosmetic alterations. According to details from the original build story, the upper structure of the M5 was removed, the wheelbase shortened by nearly eight inches, and an E9 roof grafted onto the modified chassis. The goal wasn’t simply to recreate the look of a classic coupe—it was to preserve its delicate proportions while retaining the mechanical sophistication underneath.

Achieving that balance required extensive bodywork. The front fenders were widened by roughly 2.5 inches, while the rear arches gained around four inches of additional width. Much of the custom fabrication was completed in Romania, where craftsmen hand-formed bespoke body panels to create a seamless blend of old and new.

The finished product looks as though BMW’s skunkworks division secretly built a restomod decades before the term became fashionable.

Visual cues pay tribute to the legendary 3.0 CSL “Batmobile,” including a roof-mounted spoiler, small front-fender aero fins, classic Hella driving lamps, and period-inspired badging. The body wears Porsche-sourced paint and now rides on 19-inch Alpina-style wheels wrapped in sticky Continental SportContact 7 tires. Early versions reportedly wore standard E39 M5 wheels, but the current setup better suits the car’s muscular stance.

Inside, the modern underpinnings become more apparent. A modified E39 M5 dashboard remains in place, accompanied by heated Recaro seats, dual-zone climate control, power windows, and a Pioneer touchscreen infotainment system. It’s an unusual mix of classic grand tourer and modern sports sedan, complete with creative engineering solutions such as relocating the driver’s window switch to the center console.

The real star, however, lives beneath the hood.

Power comes from BMW’s legendary 4.9-liter S62 V8, the naturally aspirated masterpiece that made the E39 M5 a performance benchmark. In this application, the engine has been reworked to produce 432 horsepower, all sent exclusively to the rear wheels through a six-speed manual transmission and a limited-slip differential.

Considering the E9’s significantly smaller dimensions and lower visual mass, the combination borders on outrageous.

Handling upgrades include adjustable KW coilovers and the M5’s braking hardware, giving the car the stopping power and chassis control needed to keep pace with its muscular powertrain. The result is less a restoration than a BMW hot rod—one that combines the analogue charm of the 1970s with the mechanical confidence of one of the greatest M cars ever built.

It’s the sort of machine that could only exist outside BMW’s corporate walls: too expensive, too complicated, and perhaps too niche for production. Yet that’s exactly what makes it so fascinating.

Now, after years of turning heads and challenging conventional BMW history, this singular creation is looking for a new caretaker. Listed through Bring a Trailer Germany, the hand-built CSL-M5 hybrid had attracted bids of €42,225 at the time of writing.

For BMW enthusiasts, that’s a small price for a glimpse into an alternate universe—one where the E9 CSL never stopped evolving.

Source: Autocar

NEW CARS

2027 BMW M2 xDrive Brings All-Wheel Drive to BMW’s Smallest M Car

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Purists may grumble, but the M2’s new xDrive system promises year-round grip, quicker acceleration, and the same sideways attitude when the mood strikes.

The day many BMW enthusiasts swore would never come has arrived. The BMW M2—long celebrated as the last bastion of compact, rear-drive M-car mischief—is officially getting all-wheel drive.

Revealed ahead of its late-summer launch, the new BMW M2 xDrive marks the first time BMW’s smallest M car has sent power to all four wheels. More significantly, it means every current M model can now be ordered with two driven axles, completing a transformation that began years ago with the larger M5, M3, and M4.

Predictably, the internet’s purist wing is already reaching for its pitchforks. But before declaring the M2’s soul lost forever, the numbers suggest BMW may have found a way to add capability without sacrificing character.

At the heart of the M2 xDrive sits the familiar S58 twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter inline-six, one of the finest performance engines currently in production. For 2027, however, BMW has updated the powerplant with a new pre-chamber combustion system called M Ignite, technology derived from motorsport that will gradually spread across the M lineup as the company prepares for stricter Euro 7 emissions regulations.

BMW says the system reduces fuel consumption under heavy load while preserving the S58’s defining traits: razor-sharp throttle response, relentless pull to redline, and the sort of straight-six soundtrack that remains increasingly rare in an era of downsizing and electrification.

The addition of xDrive also brings measurable performance gains. The sprint to 62 mph drops from 4.0 seconds to 3.7 seconds, placing the M2 even deeper into sports-car territory. That’s not a massive improvement on paper, but in the real world, the extra traction should make the car significantly easier to launch consistently, especially when road conditions are less than ideal.

As in the larger M3 and M4 xDrive models, the system remains heavily rear-biased. During everyday driving, power is sent exclusively to the rear wheels until additional traction is needed. When conditions demand it, the front axle seamlessly joins the party.

For drivers worried about losing the M2’s playful personality, BMW has included a familiar escape hatch. With stability control disabled, the system can be switched into a dedicated rear-wheel-drive mode, effectively restoring the traditional formula that made the M2 a favorite among enthusiasts. BMW describes the resulting experience as one of “remarkable purity,” which sounds suspiciously like corporate speak for “yes, you can still drift it.”

The rear axle also benefits from BMW’s Active M Differential, which continuously distributes torque between the rear wheels to maximize grip and sharpen corner-exit behavior. Combined with the additional traction available up front, the result should be a car that feels more secure in poor weather without becoming less entertaining on a dry back road.

There is, however, one casualty.

Unlike the standard rear-wheel-drive M2, the xDrive model cannot be ordered with a manual transmission. Buyers get an automatic gearbox and nothing else. That decision is unlikely to surprise anyone familiar with BMW’s recent strategy, but it does reinforce the idea that the M2 xDrive is aimed at drivers seeking maximum speed rather than maximum involvement.

The new model starts at £74,255 in the UK, roughly £4,000 more than the rear-drive version. That premium buys quicker acceleration, all-weather usability, and a broader performance envelope. Whether it also buys a better M2 will depend largely on what you value most.

For some, the ideal M2 will always be the lightest, simplest, rear-driven version with a clutch pedal in the middle. For others, the prospect of deploying nearly 500 horsepower year-round without constantly negotiating for traction will be impossible to resist.

Either way, the smallest M car has entered a new chapter. And if BMW’s recent xDrive-equipped M cars are any indication, enthusiasts may discover that adding driven front wheels doesn’t necessarily mean subtracting fun.

Source: BMW

News

BMW Is Teaching AI How to Crash Cars Faster—and Smarter

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Artificial intelligence is coming for the auto industry in ways that go far beyond chatbots and touchscreen voice assistants. BMW’s latest move proves the next big AI battleground may actually be hidden deep inside the virtual crash lab.

The BMW Group has announced a partnership with French AI startup Mistral AI aimed at transforming the automaker’s crash-simulation process using highly specialized artificial intelligence models. While that might sound like another vague Silicon Valley buzzword exercise, BMW’s plan is rooted in something much more tangible: an absolutely staggering mountain of engineering data.

Every week, BMW runs thousands of virtual crash simulations as it develops new vehicles. Over the years, those digital impacts have accumulated into more than a petabyte of crash data—a library of structural deformation, material behavior, and safety-performance information massive enough to make even the biggest consumer AI datasets look quaint. Now BMW wants to turn that archive into an engineering brain.

The collaboration with Mistral AI centers around what BMW calls “Large Industry Models,” or LIMs. Think of them as the industrial equivalent of large language models, except instead of learning how humans write emails or generate memes, these systems are being trained to understand how a car’s chassis twists during a side impact or how different alloys behave in a high-speed frontal collision.

BMW says the goal is to improve the speed, accuracy, and overall quality of complex engineering work. In practical terms, that could mean engineers identifying weaknesses earlier in development, reducing costly physical prototypes, and accelerating the timeline between concept and production. In an industry where safety validation can consume enormous amounts of time and money, shaving even small percentages off the process matters.

“For the BMW Group, the use of industrial data is a key factor in translating artificial intelligence into value creation,” said Dr. Franz Decker, the company’s CIO and Senior Vice President. Translation: BMW believes its real competitive advantage isn’t just building cars anymore—it’s owning decades of highly specific engineering knowledge that AI systems can learn from.

That’s where Mistral AI enters the picture. The Paris-based startup has quickly become one of Europe’s most prominent AI companies, positioning itself as an alternative to American AI heavyweights. According to Mistral Chief Revenue Officer Marjorie Janiewicz, industrial AI represents “the new frontier” for artificial intelligence, particularly in engineering-heavy applications like crash simulation.

Unlike general-purpose AI tools, BMW’s LIM strategy focuses on domain-specific intelligence. The company isn’t asking AI to do everything. It’s asking AI to become exceptionally good at understanding one thing: vehicle development. That distinction matters. Generic AI may know what a crash test is, but BMW wants a system that understands precisely how a front subframe behaves under load at 40 mph.

The move also highlights a broader shift happening across the automotive world. Carmakers are no longer treating AI as a futuristic feature for infotainment systems—they’re embedding it directly into the engineering pipeline itself. The race now isn’t just about who builds the best EV or the fastest software-defined vehicle. It’s about who can turn decades of proprietary industrial data into a competitive weapon.

And if BMW’s AI can learn how to crash cars more efficiently before humans ever build them, the next generation of safer vehicles may arrive faster than anyone expected.

Source: BMW