Seeing into the long run is a really uncommon present. Particularly when it’s about how one in all your favourite manufacturers plans to develop and broaden their efficiency automotive lineup. Catching up with Sylvia Neubauer—Vice President Buyer, Model, and Gross sales at BMW M—we discovered that the G81 Touring isn’t coming to America. But it surely wasn’t all unhealthy information. Fortunately, there’s nonetheless loads to be enthusiastic about at BMW M.
The State of the Handbook
“It’s a life-style assertion,” Ms. Neubauer begins when requested in regards to the US guide take price. “It’s not, ‘oh yeah, I acquired the cheaper automotive, and it’s a guide,’ it’s an announcement…like a bragging factor.” She agreed with us once we stated the US market had the upper take price on manuals, however didn’t have precise figures to offer. However not the whole lot will get a guide: “it will depend on the idea. The guide transmission is just not the correct resolution for each phase.” And, don’t get it twisted—the lion’s share of M vehicles are nonetheless computerized.
That’s to not say BMW is breaking apart with the guide. Fairly the other, in truth: “there’s nothing ever closed perpetually,” Neubauer says when requested if BMW is closing the door on manuals. You most likely already knew, but it surely’s all the time good to listen to that BMW is dedicated to holding the guide gearbox alive.
Supercar, or One thing Else?
Huge information is brewing at BMW: “there’s something on the horizon that I’m most likely not allowed to speak about,” Sylvia says when requested about what sort of innovation we are able to anticipate from BMW M going ahead. “Introducing a brand new idea to a market all the time comes with a little bit of a danger. There’s one very concrete undertaking on the horizon that we’re at present engaged on. I feel it is perhaps very interesting to many markets on this planet.”
Not a lot to go on, however perhaps it has one thing to do with that loopy electrical BMW prototype noticed a number of months in the past. One factor it gained’t be is a follow-up to the superior M8. Sadly, that automotive left manufacturing earlier this yr. Sylvia confirmed that the M8 “has no direct successor.”
M2 Will Be Extra Customizable—and Possibly Ship Faster
“We all know that there’s a demand,” Sylvia says when requested about an expanded or Particular person coloration palette for the smallest M automotive at this time, the M2. “San Luis Potosi is proscribed to a sure variety of colours…and sure, there may be evaluation occurring to open it up for extra Particular person colours.” Sadly, she stops a number of phrases in need of confirming it, however not less than know that they’re trying into it. BMW M can also be optimizing the bigger Particular person ordering course of with the manager board of BMW Group, which could result in extra/faster choices.
Sylvia stunned us with a stunning statistic: one of the best promoting M automotive in 2024 was apparently the M2. After that, it goes, pretty predictably, M3 after which M4. “The M3 simply gives you the whole lot,” she says. The “extroverts” selecting the “much less useful automotive that’s the M4 are a smaller goal group than the M3.”
M5 Manufacturing Surprises
Virtually universally, the brand new M5 stunned journalists as they climbed behind the wheel for the primary time. And seems, it had some surprises in retailer for BMW M, too. “Initially, our plan was to have two-thirds of the manufacturing over your complete [M5] lifecycle as a sedan and one-third as a Touring,” Sylvia begins. “We now see that there’s extra demand for the sedan, so we’ve elevated manufacturing there. However there’s much more demand for the Touring. So the rise on the Touring is way greater.” She claims manufacturing is break up evenly at 50:50 for the time being.
