This Is the M3 CSL That BMW Never Built

I’m sure it’s crossed your mind before: “What if X automaker made Y car?” Whether it’s an all-new model, a cross cut of several, or simply a key tweak to a beloved classic, those little what-ifs could elevate great cars to legends in our minds.

For me, there’s a constant ticker reel of these sorts of ideas. What if GM built a midsize body-on-frame ZR2 SUV? What if Porsche had built a factory 996 Turbo Dakar? What if Toyota had somehow mustered the financial might to include a functional top-down camera in my 2024 4Runner? (Unfathomable, I know)

From the GRAUSLICK YouTube channel’s latest project, another question: What if BMW had built an E36 M3 CSL? 

I’ve thought this very thought before; I owned several E36s when they were dirt-cheap commodities found mostly rotting on the less-than-fashionable used-car lots lining Spokane’s seedier byways. These cars of mine inevitably had their suspensions hardened, engines heartened, and most of the civility wrung out of them for the sole purpose of turning autocross runs about a quarter-second quicker (or, if you ask my wife, for slamming her thoracic spine into a fine powder). 

But imagine if BMW did that from the factory?

Photo by: BMW

Of course in America we got the E36 Lightweight, which is a version of that idea, sans the glorious Euro engine that pumped out more than a meaningful amount of horsepower beyond the “LTW.” Nor did the American car feature the second-best intake noise in all of BMW’s history (I’m talking about the Euro E36 here, with its individual throttle bodies. First on the list: an E30 M3 with a carbon airbox). 

And Europe got the E36 M3 GT, which had the glorious Euro engine, but was simply a bit more gorgeous and special than the mainline car, not one explicitly devoted to “lightweighting,” as the Porsche dorks call it.

Photo by: BMW

Thankfully there’s a channel on YouTube that aims to answer the question. You can check out some foundational aspects of the project from an earlier episode here. In it, the GRAUSLICK team addresses the E36’s fuel system and dashboard, topping off their purposeful looking, track-focused interior.

Or you can hop into the middle of the project like I did and see how their S54 engine is assembled and fitted to the car, plus some 3-D scanning done to build lightweight interior panels, as in true BMW CSL form, this build will do without fineries like radios and full HVAC. 

As an E36 dirtbag for life, I’m watching this project with keen interest. Raw, lightweight E36 M3s feel equivalent in character and ferocity to Porsche’s now-vaunted 996 GT3s. And with S54 power added to this one—and bulked up with some performance goodies—it should be a very special M3 indeed.