The web page Required Secondary Powers attempts to explain what additional powers heroes and superheroes need in order to make their primary power useful. Without some sort of massive internal gravity, “the Flash would liquefy from sheer Gs,” and when it comes to Pokémon, “a lot of them must have pocket dimensions inside them to hold all that water/rock/webbing/snow/acid/etc.” As we’re seeing with more vehicles, manual transmissions and the rear-wheel drive alone cannot manage our lust for torque and horsepower, making automatic transmissions and all-wheel drive increasingly necessary secondary powers in performance cars. And so it is that BMW Blog says its sources report the coming M3 CS and M4 CS will only be available with automatic transmissions and BMW’s xDrive AWD.
This should surprise and disappoint no one. The M3 and M4 can only be had in rear-wheel-drive, manual form when their output is cut from 503 horsepower and 473 pound-feet of torque to 473 ponies and 406 lb-ft. The M3/M4 Competition trim above (pictured) gets all the grunt and spin and a RWD variant, but only shifts through an eight-speed automatic. The M3/M4 CS trim will sit above the Competition, rocking somewhere between the 503 hp of the Competition model and the rumored 540 hp of the M4 CSL. And as every superhero knows, with great power comes great sacrifice.
In the same report, BMW Blog said there’s still hope the rear-wheel-drive M4 CSL could get a manual transmission, but that seems more like the delirium of hope. A few weeks ago the same outlet headlined a report with, “The BMW M4 CSL Probably Won’t be a Manual and That’s Okay.” At this point we should probably just accept the continuing golden age of ICE-powered performance and capability, and accept that getting prodigious torque under six figures means also getting mechanical valets to do the shifting and power distribution.
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Source: www.autoblog.com