A German tuning company will sell you a 203mph BMW M2

No: spot the numberplates. Meet Lightweight Performance’s M2 CSR. Good question, glad you asked: the initials stand for ‘Carbon Sport Race’. The first thing you need to know is that the M2’s ‘N55’-code engine has been swiped. Instead, the starting point for this uber-M2 is the more potent, twin-turbo S55 3.0-litre straight-six usually found in the M3 and M4 twins. As standard, it delivers 424bhp. Which, quite frankly, is already too much for the M4 to handle…

Yup, the squat, punchy, smiles-per-hour BMW M2 was designed to be the baby M. The entry-level fast BMW. M Division’s least powerful and slowest rear-drive machine, with a sub-M4 price and generally sensible numbers on its spec sheet. It was a great recipe, and it’s become a hero car at TG. Right on the sweet spot.

But, just as some individuals look at a perfectly serviceable aircraft and think ‘wonder what it’d be like to leap out of that at 15,000 feet attached to a glorified handkerchief’, the M2’s everything-in-moderation appeal was never going to last. Which is why a German outfit by the name of Lightweight Performance have made one that’ll do 203mph.

Beefier turbos, a freer-lowing exhaust and intake, plus an M4 GTS-style water-injection system are then lavished on the engine, lifting power output to the stratosphere. Lightweight Performance claims this thing is delivering 602bhp and 566lb ft to the rear wheels, albeit through the optional seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox. Normally, we prefer the M2 with its old-school manual, but where the CSR’s concerned we’d prefer to keep both hands wrapped white-knuckled around the Alcantara wheel.

A question for you to mull in the comments: is having your car’s power and torque graphs daubed onto the engine cover in fact the least tasteful car mod of 2017, or next season’s ricer must-have?

The DCT gearbox itself is running snappier software, and the whole car’s going to be punching the horizon that bit quicker, because the CSR isn’t just a whole heap more power. It’s also a whole heap less mass. 

The ‘Carbon’ bit of its name is earned with a CFRP bonnet, roof, doors, bootlid, diffuser and rear wing. The bucket seats are carbon-shelled. The brakes are carbon-ceramic. Lightweight Performance claims a massive 195kg has been shaved from the porky standard car’s 1570kg, pitching it around 55kg lighter than a Porsche 718 Cayman S.

A verified 0-62mph remains a mystery. So does the price for this quite bonkers conversion. But perhaps lists of numbers are ultimately trivial, when you’re talking about giving the baby M car as much power as a Lamborghini Huracan. Sometimes, you just need to admire the lunacy. From a safe distance.