I’m fortunate in that I get to drive many excellent cars, but every so often, I get behind the wheel of something and within ten seconds of driving it, I realise I’m at the helm of something particularly special. That’s precisely what happened when I recently tested the BMW M3 CS.

The current M3 is a car I know well – I’ve tested the G80 Competition and the Touring, and have declared my love for both of them in the pages of Redline and to anyone who will listen to me talk about them. In a previous issue of the magazine, I also reviewed the M5 CS and called it one of the great M cars. With that in mind, the M3 CS isn’t a car that BMW should be falling short on, and they haven’t.

To understand what makes the CS so special, we must first dive in to what’s been changed because BMW claims that it’s 15 per cent different compared to the standard Competition. Needless to say, weight saving measures have been made including light weight alloys, carbon ceramic brakes – these are a £7,000 plus option – a new titanium backbox for the exhaust, and a carbon bonnet. All told, the CS weighs 15kg less than a Comp’ which doesn’t sound like much of a saving, but one should consider that the weight has come out of the areas that matter for driving dynamics.

Changes have also been made to the engine, steering, chassis and suspension. Tuning of the ECU and an increase in turbo boost pressure has resulted in a 39bhp uplift, although torque remains unchanged. In pursuit of improved handling, there are stiffer mounts for the engine and changes have been made to the shock absorbers, coils and anti-roll bars. The active differential has also been recalibrated to make the dynamics more rear biased, and the steering has been tweaked.

The result is an M3 that feels more alive and in tune with the road surface than the standard car. Think what the GT3 is to the Porsche 911, and you’ll have a greater sense of what the CS is to the M3. The G80 has always been a complete driver’s car, but the changes have turned it in to a sports saloon that would feel just at home on a race track as it does on the public road.

There is an urgency to the way the CS gets down the road, not just in terms of straight line performance which I’ll come on to shortly, but the way it drives. The steering is well weighted and offers feedback of the road surface through its thick Alcantara wheel, the chassis is beautifully balanced and communicates how much grip you have without giving in to any roll, and the brake pedal is well judged with plenty of stopping power. Throw it in to a corner and give it a little throttle, and like all the best M cars, it pivots around you. It feels light on its feet, with a sharp front end and a rear that follows faithfully. By no means do you feel its 1,765kg kerbweight, instead it changes direction like a car that feels some 200 kilos lighter.  And despite being firmer than an M3 Competition, the CS still rounds off the worst of the road surface. At its firmest, the ride is purposeful, but certainly never crashy.

BMW also lets you configure your ideal set up and then save it to the M1 and M2 buttons on the steering wheel. My preference was to dial the engine, steering and brakes in to their most aggressive settings, but leave the chassis in Sport for a slightly more forgiving ride as Sport Plus is too firm for the road. I then set the M xDrive system to 4WD Sport so it sent more power to the rear wheels. This was a balance that worked for me and the way I like to drive, but the options are such that you can easily tailor it to your own liking. If you’re so inclined, you can select 2WD which sends all the power to the rear wheels for full hooligan mode. In the name of consumer motoring journalism *coughs sarcastically* I decided to do just that so I could report my findings to you… and it goes without saying that the CS will cut shapes like all the best M cars.

Are the improvements enough to warrant the £32,000 premium you would pay over an M3 Competition? Absolutely. At no point did it feel like a mildly improved Comp’ but more like the car that the engineers at BMW M would want to make given free reign. There is a purity to the way it does things that so few performance-orientated road cars actually manage to replicate. It’s a proper driving tool.

The engine also feels like a step on from the motor in the Competition, even though it’s the same 3.0 litre, twin-turbo straight six – codename S58 for all you engine designation geeks out there. The bump in power brings it up to 543bhp which feels like the correct amount for the chassis, and it puts out 479lb ft of torque. Zero to 62mph takes 3.4 seconds and it will run to 188mph given enough road, but the way it pursues the rev limiter is what sets it apart. Harder edged and with an improved sound track, the engine in the CS is a motor that you want to rev just that little extra to get the best from. The power is distributed via an eight-speed torque converter which is typically the week point in modern M cars. It’s a smooth and reliable transmission, but I still yearn for a twin-clutch for snappy shifts, even if the gearbox in the CS is the crispest version I’ve used so far.

Thankfully, none of the extra performance or focus of the CS has come at the expense of every day usability. It’s still a pleasant road car to get around in with five seats, a large boot, a user friendly interior, Apple CarPlay, a Harman Kardon sound system, and one of the best driving positions of any car. The carbon bucket seats which are standard fit are actually set lower in the CS to help you find your optimal seating position. There’s also plenty of carbon trim and CS branding around the cabin to remind you that you’re not driving any old M3.

BMW has been making some of my favourite interiors for a while now, because they’re well thought-out and still put the driver front and centre, unlike rival’s cars which are laden with tech. And because you have xDrive, the M3 CS offers unyielding traction even in wet conditions, making it a real all-seasons B-road blaster. You could comfortably drive to your favourite racing circuit, complete a track day, and then drive home again, such is the car’s breadth of talent.

Like I said at the beginning of the review, the M3 CS felt special from the get-go, and after a few days of road testing, my appreciation for what it does and how, only deepened. It’s a very complete package; a faster, sharper, more entertaining M3 with no real downsides. It’s also much, much rarer, with only 100 examples allocated for the UK. More importantly though, it serves as proof that BMW still knows how to make the ultimate driving machine.