The BMW 3.0 CSL has sparked a lot of controversy because of its exorbitant price tag, believed to hover around €750,000. At its core, it’s an M4 CSL, a car that BMW sold in Germany for €165,200. That means the modern-day E9 Batmobile was roughly four and a half times more expensive than the donor car. It came with a full body kit, centerlock wheels, a manual gearbox, and a bit more power – but was that enough to justify the colossal premium? Well, 50 people didn’t have a problem with spending supercar money on what remains an M4.

While most of the vehicles have been built with a left-hand-drive specification, including the final one, this walkaround video shows a rare example of a 3.0 CSL with a right-hand-drive layout. It’s the 13th vehicle in the production sequence and it recently touched down in Singapore. Most (but not all) cars have the steering wheel on the right side in this southeast Asian country where vehicles drive on the left side of the road.

BMW painted all 50 3.0 CSLs in this Alpine White color with a manually applied M motif. Much like the M4 CSL and the recently facelifted M4 Coupe, it gets those swanky laser taillights. These individually numbered cars are all a two-seat affair, and yes, there’s a clutch pedal and a stick shift. The M4 CSL was sold strictly with the eight-speed Steptronic and had the inline-six dialed to 543 hp instead of 553 hp as is the case here.

Those centerlock wheels are no longer exclusive to this car since you can have them on a “lowly” M2, M3, or M4 as an item from the M Performance Parts catalog. What we’d really want to see on other vehicles is the beautifully redesigned kidney grille. It’s even better than what 2015 3.0 CSL Hommage had, although overall, we reckon that concept still looked more spectacular and what BMW should’ve built instead.

As nice as this 3.0 CSL might look, the price tag was a tough pill to swallow, although not for those 50 buyers. Sadly, BMW didn’t also green light the recently uncovered I16 supercar it axed in 2020. That would’ve been an even better way of celebrating 50 years of M by bringing back the spirit of the mid-engine M1.

Source: Sgcarmart / YouTube