6,000rpm. All six pistons are covering 18 meters per second but the car is travelling significantly faster. At this point, most engines are begging for the clutch to take the strain away before starting the assault all over again, but not the CSL, because it's just getting into its stride. This marks the moment the straight-six comes on cam and stampedes towards 8,000 revolutions and 355 rampant horsepower, that glorious carbon fibre echo chamber emitting its siren call.

The pitch climaxes, the reverb intensifies, the hairs on the back of your neck begin to rise and the world around morphs into a blur. It’s a song so full of motorsport mojo every single one of those combustion cycles is seared onto your psyche, the good vibrations fizzing along the structure into your fingertips, filtered through a cocktail of Alcantara, aluminium and composites. I’ve no idea about the acoustic properties of weaved carbon but from where I’m sitting the Sydney Opera House should be lined in the stuff.

Snap the upshift paddle to attention - keep the foot in, don’t lift - and receive a Jean Claude Van Damme to the back of the neck. The oft-derided SMG gearbox drops me right back into the 6-8 land of milk and honey. Right now I’m not craving three pedals - at this speed it’s prudent to have both hands on the wheel…

CSL. Three innocent, unassuming letters individually, but once combined they take on an almost mythical status, especially in BMW folklore. It’s a Bavarian acronym reserved for very special vehicles, ones designed to compete at the absolute sharp end of the performance car envelope. It stands for Coupe, Sport, Lightweight, and it’s only been rolled out twice in the company’s 108-year history. Once adorned, the manufacturer of ‘the ultimate driving machine’ is projecting a level of confidence and bravado that dwarfs even its famous tagline. That’s because a CSL is all about winning, and to hell with the profit margins.

The key letter in the trio is the L, because nothing is a greater enemy to performance and dynamics than excess kilograms. When it comes to upping the ante, a manufacturer has two choices - increase the horsepower, or decrease the mass. The former is the easiest route, the latter is far more difficult and costly but also purer, because shedding weight improves dynamics in all directions of travel, not just acceleration. It lessens the load on the tyres, the brakes, the suspension and the structure. Every vanquished kilo and luxury promotes a spiral of benefits that leads towards driving nirvana.

The original 1972 CSL was based upon the E9 chassis - specifically the 3.0csi - and was the result of the fledgling M Division homologating the car for touring car racing. Power was upped to 203bhp whilst weight was stripped from the car by using thinner steel, deleting trim and removing soundproofing. You might know it by its more famous later name - Batmobile - due to the wild wings and aero kit added to the car in 1973. So extreme were the additions, they were classified illegal for use on German roads so BMW stuffed them in the boot of the car, instructing owners to fit them post-sale in order to circumvent the regulations.

Going to such lengths paid off for BMW however, as the CSL cleaned up on race tracks around the world, winning the European Touring Car Championship an incredible six times in seven years from 1973-79, whilst also collecting a class win at the Le Mans 24hrs.

Sadly, the 2003 M3 CSL never got to see the chequered flag unless in the hands of privateers, but the competitive spirit remained. That spirit found its epicentre at the Nürburgring, with a key development target of a sub-eight-minute lap - unheard of at the time on a production car, but one the 911 GT3 had breached with a 7.54 time. The standard E46 M3 - itself no slouch and a performance car benchmark - ran an 8.22 against the stopwatch. M had to find 1.7 seconds for every mile of the Green Hell, and the renowned 3.2 straight-six was already making 338bhp. The easy route of turbocharging was not an option. Gerhard Richter was still in charge and his rule and purity of vision were absolute - M cars had to be naturally aspirated. Harder, faster, stronger was the only solution.

BMW returned to Colin Chapman’s guiding philosophy of ‘just add lightness’ with a Germanic twist of ruthless efficiency. Not only is the car lighter, it's targeted mass saving in important places - up on high and at the extremes of the car, lowering the centre of gravity and moving the heft inwards. Take the carbon fibre roof, the first of its kind and one of the great engineering statements killing two birds with one stone - more strength for less weight.

Another but no less trivial benefit is it looks Bruce Lee cool and was a hugely expensive manufacturing endeavour just to save 6kg. This utilization of composites and elements flows across all of the CSL’s surfaces. Low down we have aircraft grade glass fibre the