Seeing into the longer term is a really uncommon reward. Particularly when it’s about how certainly one of 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. Nevertheless it wasn’t all dangerous information. Fortunately, there’s nonetheless quite a bit to be enthusiastic about at BMW M.
The State of the Handbook
“It’s a life-style assertion,” Ms. Neubauer begins when requested concerning the US handbook take fee. “It’s not, ‘oh yeah, I obtained the cheaper automotive, and it’s a handbook,’ it’s an announcement…like a bragging factor.” She agreed with us after we mentioned the US market had the upper take fee on manuals, however didn’t have actual figures to supply. However not all the pieces will get a handbook: “it is dependent upon the idea. The handbook transmission just isn’t the right resolution for each phase.” And, don’t get it twisted—the lion’s share of M automobiles are nonetheless automated.
That’s to not say BMW is breaking apart with the handbook. Fairly the other, the truth is: “there’s nothing ever closed endlessly,” Neubauer says when requested if BMW is closing the door on manuals. You in all probability already knew, nevertheless it’s all the time good to listen to that BMW is dedicated to preserving the handbook gearbox alive.
Supercar, or One thing Else?
Huge information is brewing at BMW: “there’s something on the horizon that I’m in all probability not allowed to speak about,” Sylvia says when requested about what sort of innovation we are able to count on 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 challenge on the horizon that we’re presently engaged on. I believe it is perhaps very interesting to many markets on the planet.”
Not a lot to go on, however possibly it has one thing to do with that loopy electrical BMW prototype noticed just a few 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 Perhaps Ship Faster
“We all know that there’s a demand,” Sylvia says when requested about an expanded or Particular person shade palette for the smallest M automotive at present, 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 just a few phrases in need of confirming it, however a minimum of know that they’re wanting into it. BMW M can be optimizing the bigger Particular person ordering course of with the chief board of BMW Group, which could result in extra/faster choices.
Sylvia shocked us with a stunning statistic: the most effective promoting M automotive in 2024 was apparently the M2. After that, it goes, pretty predictably, M3 after which M4. “The M3 simply provides you all the pieces,” 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
Nearly universally, the brand new M5 shocked 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 cut up evenly at 50:50 for the time being.
