Americans Bought Half Of All Riviera Blue BMW M4 CS Coupes

BMW built 1,546 G82 M4 CS coupes, according to VIN-level production data compiled by MDataWorks, an independent tracker with no connection to BMW. That total includes 94 cars from the VR46 Edition, the special run tied to Valentino Rossi.

M4 CS Production By Color

The M4 CS came in four regular colors plus two VR46-only paints. Black Sapphire was the most popular, which is the opposite of the G80 M3 CS, where matte white won.

• Black Sapphire: 475 (30.7 percent)
• Riviera Blue: 362 (23.4 percent)
• Frozen Isle of Man Green: 345 (22.3 percent)
• Brooklyn Grey: 270 (17.5 percent)
• Marina Bay Blue (VR46): 48 (3.1 percent)
• Frozen Tanzanite Blue (VR46): 46 (3.0 percent)

The three regular colors behind Black Sapphire are separated by just 92 cars, so M4 CS buyers spread their orders across the palette far more evenly than M4 CSL buyers did. Brooklyn Grey, the color that dominated the CSL in its Frozen form, finished last of the four here.

The 94 VR46 Editions

The VR46 cars split almost evenly between their two colors: 48 in Marina Bay Blue and 46 in Frozen Tanzanite Blue. Together they make up about 6 percent of M4 CS production, and each color is rarer than any regular M4 CS paint by a factor of more than five.

Only 10 of the 94 went to the US, five in each color. That’s about 11 percent of VR46 production, even though the US took 27 percent of all M4 CSs.

Americans Bought Half Of All Riviera Blue M4 CSs

Filtered to US cars, the M4 CS color ranking looks very different.

• Riviera Blue: 184 (44.3 percent)
• Black Sapphire: 99 (23.9 percent)
• Frozen Isle of Man Green: 86 (20.7 percent)
• Brooklyn Grey: 36 (8.7 percent)
• Frozen Tanzanite Blue (VR46): 5
• Marina Bay Blue (VR46): 5

Of the 362 Riviera Blue M4 CSs built, 184 went to American buyers. That’s just over half the worldwide total in one market. Nearly every other US color is underrepresented as a result: Black Sapphire drops from 31 percent of global production to 24 percent in the US, and Brooklyn Grey from 17 percent to under 9 percent. It’s the same pattern as the M3 CS, where Americans ordered 41 percent of all Signal Green cars. Given the choice, US buyers went for the loudest regular color on both cars.

How American Buyers Specced Their M4 CS

The US data also shows how those 415 cars were optioned.

• Carbon-ceramic brakes: 113 (27.2 percent)
• Standard brakes: 302 (72.8 percent)
• Gold wheels: 209 (50.4 percent)
• Black wheels: 206 (49.6 percent)
• Sport tires: 339 (81.7 percent)
• Track tires: 57 (13.7 percent)
• Ultra tires: 19 (4.6 percent)

The wheel split is as close as it gets, with gold ahead by three cars. The brake take rate is close to the M3 CS’s, where 29.6 percent of US cars got carbon-ceramics. The tires are where the two cars part ways. Just over half of US M3 CS buyers took track tires, but only 76 of 415 US M4 CS buyers, or 18 percent, chose the track or Ultra option. The M4 CS also offered a third tire choice that the M3 CS didn’t.

Where The M4 CSs Went

The US was the largest market with 415 cars, about 27 percent of production. Germany was second with 260.

• USA: 415
• Germany: 260
• Canada: 79
• UK: 62
• Italy: 42
• Japan: 42

Canada took 79 cars, more than the UK. That’s the reverse of the M3 CS, where the UK edged out Canada 74 to 70. Germany took 18 more M4 CSs than M3 CSs.  These six markets account for 900 cars. The remaining 646 went elsewhere, and the VIN list includes deliveries to El Salvador and Uzbekistan, two places you don’t usually see in M car production data.

Left-Hand Drive Vs. Right-Hand Drive

By region, 806 cars went to left-hand-drive markets outside North America. North America took 494, which is exactly the US and Canadian totals combined. The remaining 246 were right-hand drive. The UK and Japan account for 104 of those, and the other 142 went to other right-hand-drive markets [TK: Australia figure, if available].

How It Compares To The M3 CS

The US took almost the same number of each car: 415 M4 CS coupes and 412 M3 CS sedans. North America’s share was higher for the coupe, at 32 percent versus 28 percent for the M3 CS. The M4 CS ended up with fewer cars overall than the automatic M3 CS, 1,546 against 1,727. That gap will grow once the M3 CS Handschalter run is complete.