BMW sends off the 6th-gen M3 CS with a manual gearbox, rear-wheel drive

The march of time, and what counts for progress in the automotive industry, has not been particularly kind to the driving enthusiast. Our vehicles have gotten bigger and heavier. Touch-sensitive panels and screens replaced buttons. Steering feel evaporated about a decade ago. And if you’re a fan of changing your own gears with a stick shift and three pedals, things have been looking bleak for a while now. Which makes BMW’s send off for its current sixth-generation M3 so notable. BMW’s M division kept the six-speed manual alive for the G80 M3, but only the normal version. If you wanted the more powerful, much torquier M3 Competition or the track-focused M3 CS (Competiton Sport) the only transmission choice was an eight-speed automatic. That automatic happens to be the excellent ZF 8HP gearbox, and for being fast on track, I’d still choose it, because that makes left-foot braking easier. Using paddle shifts might be faster, but I won’t pretend it’s more engaging than co-ordinating the movement of a gearstick through its gate, timed properly to the action of the clutch—especially if you’re heel-and-toeing, but even if you use the auto-blip feature that revs the engines for you on downshifts now. BMW appears to recognize that too, because it says the 2027 M3 CS Handschalter is designed for maximum driver engagement, and just for North America. BMW M’s next major work will be next year’s all-electric quad-motor M3, derived from the Neue Klasse i3. And we can’t imagine there’s a three-pedal version of that one in the works, sadly. In BMW’s briefing materials for the M3 CS Handschalter, it notes that the 3.0 L S58 engine is also used, in modified form, in the BMW M4 GT3 Evo that won the Rolex 24 at Daytona this year. BMW has had a fair degree of success with the M4 GT3 Evo, as it also won last year’s Nurbürgring 24, among other races. But the only M race car with an S58 engine anyone cared about at this year’s N24 started life as an April Fool’s joke. As 24-hour races go, the N24 is certainly unique. Le Mans and Daytona have faster prototypes among the GTs. Spa-Francorchamps is just GT3, but more than 70 of them on track together. But the N24 combines everything from GT3 cars down to Volkswagen Golfs, and does so across not just the modern F1-grade GP Circuit but also the entire stretch of the Nordschleife, with its narrow straights, crests, drops, and dozens of blind corners. Watching driver onboards are frankly terrifying, given the speed differentials.