Seeing into the long run is a very uncommon reward. Particularly when it’s about how one in every of your favourite manufacturers plans to develop and broaden their efficiency automobile lineup. Catching up with Sylvia Neubauer—Vice President Buyer, Model, and Gross sales at BMW M—we realized that the G81 Touring isn’t coming to America. But it surely wasn’t all unhealthy 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 acquired the cheaper automobile, and it’s a handbook,’ it’s a press release…like a bragging factor.” She agreed with us once we stated the US market had the upper take fee on manuals, however didn’t have actual figures to offer. However not the whole lot will get a handbook: “it relies on the idea. The handbook transmission just isn’t the correct answer for each section.” 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, actually: “there’s nothing ever closed perpetually,” Neubauer says when requested if BMW is closing the door on manuals. You in all probability already knew, however it’s all the time good to listen to that BMW is dedicated to keeping the manual 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 will anticipate from BMW M going ahead. “Introducing a brand new idea to a market all the time comes with a little bit of a threat. There’s one very concrete venture on the horizon that we’re presently engaged on. I feel it may be very interesting to many markets on this planet.”
Not a lot to go on, however possibly it has one thing to do with that crazy electric BMW prototype noticed just a few months in the past. One factor it received’t be is a follow-up to the superior M8. Sadly, that automobile left manufacturing earlier this 12 months. 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 colour palette for the smallest M automobile at this time, the M2. “San Luis Potosi is restricted to a sure variety of colours…and sure, there’s evaluation happening to open it up for extra Particular person colours.” Sadly, she stops just a few phrases in need of confirming it, however at the least 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 surprising statistic: the most effective promoting M automobile in 2024 was apparently the M2. After that, it goes, pretty predictably, M3 after which M4. “The M3 simply provides you the whole lot,” she says. The “extroverts” selecting the “much less useful automobile that’s the M4 are a smaller goal group than the M3.”
M5 Manufacturing Surprises
Nearly 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 all the [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 larger.” She claims manufacturing is cut up evenly at 50:50 in the intervening time.
