[ORIGIN M.]

Originally Posted by Fundguy1

Soft tops are for covered wagons. Hard tops are the future. I've had a soft top sliced with a razor knife way to many times in the past and stuff stolen. Never had it happen with a hardtop. Also soft tops add no rigidity to the car so they handle like crap. At least a hard top helps when it's up. Finally a hardtop lasts longer instead of looking ratty in 3 yrs, requires less maintenance, and is way more quiet road noise wise. Both take up similar trunk space. I've had a half dozen verts. The hardtop is superior in every way.

The future embraces the past simplicity is where it's at !

[chihaohsia]

BMW should just make a supercar for the sake of it!!!!!!! Everyone else has one of their own!!! Damn it!!!!!!!!

[....,,,,..,,..]

Originally Posted by chihaohsia

BMW should just make a supercar for the sake of it!!!!!!! Everyone else has one of their own!!! Damn it!!!!!!!!

Why?
Would likely not sell many, it's not their core business.

Name 5 manufacturers that build family saloons (4 door within a reasonable budget) and also manufacturer a supercar?

Assuming that BMW did make a £200k + car, it would definitely be an auto.

[captainaudio]

Originally Posted by red-sauerkraut

The future embraces the past simplicity is where it's at !

Simplicity is where it's at?
Tell that to the team that designed the new 7 Series.

[FatboyF80M3]

i want it MANUAL

[Fundguy1]

Originally Posted by Brigand

Why?
Would likely not sell many, it's not their core business.

Name 5 manufacturers that build family saloons (4 door within a reasonable budget) and also manufacturer a supercar?

Assuming that BMW did make a £200k + car, it would definitely be an auto.

Ford GT
Chevy Z06
Lexus LFA
Nissan GTR
Viper SRT
Nof hybrids. No electrics. 2 manual transmissions

[Pentium]

Originally Posted by Fundguy1

Ford GT
Chevy Z06
Lexus LFA
Nissan GTR
Viper SRT
Nof hybrids. No electrics. 2 manual transmissions

Audi R8
Mercedes AMG-GT / SLS / SLR

[Fundguy1]

Originally Posted by Jashley73

Buddy, that sounds fine and dandy, but $2000 per car probably still isn't enough to offset the added development & program costs for a manual transmission. Especially as their numbers will continue to decline. When you see tooling quotes for *1* assembly machine, equivalent to the cost of a *fleet* of new M-cars, you'll begin to understand the astronomical costs of factory assembly & automation. To say nothing of the development/support costs that come with the added part(s) on the manual/trans cars.

Even if the manual transmission cost the same money as the auto, which it may, there's probably, *easily* 300-500 unique parts to the manual-transmission car, including things like the pedal assembly, shifter related parts, clutch/throw-out assembly, transmission mounts, driveshaft & related parts, and so on.

Oh, and don't forget - all those special mounts/cross-members will require dedicated mounting holes/brackets in the other frame/uni-body parts, so now we have to make accomodations at the chassis level, again, all for a ~1% probability.

And all of those special parts come with a full staff of purchasing buyers, quality managers, program managers, design engineers, manufacturing engineers, tooling engineers, etc...

And that's just at the BMW-OEM level. Start trickling down to the Tier-1 & Tier-2 level suppliers, (ZF - the transmission maker...) and the problem just keeps going. Again - manufacturing, tooling, and administrative costs to keep a legacy product in production...

Starting to get the picture?

you are a joke in this BMW charges $2900 less for a manual. Less. I'm saying charge $2000 more. Why do they still charge less? Because a manual transmission costs way less to manufacture. So add a $2000 premium and I don't care if it is 1%, that's anot almost $5000 swing on thousands of cars for something g that costs less to manufacture. Get the picture?

[BMWAELBILAL]

What i think is that they said the 600hp is the limit
But i think they mean that 600hp is the limit for rwd
But say for 600hp+ for AWD
But thats stupid i hope they delete this idea and keep adding HP for RWD and AWD and i hope AWD is just an option for M cars

[Cope]

Originally Posted by red-sauerkraut

The future embraces the past simplicity is where it's at !

Except when we discuss the simplicity of rowing your own gears over some complicated automated transmission?

Edit: I prefer soft tops, but I feel like you're cherry picking here.

[KingOfJericho]

Do we actually know what the take-rate is for manuals in the M3/M4? I'm willing to bet it's still pretty high. Sure, they might be seeing a decline at present but I believe that decline will eventually trough.

I think this trend is a direct result of a widening buyers pool rather than a step up in technology. Sure, the latter is somewhat of a factor, but I think the fact that BMW annual sales have grown by literally a million vehicles since 1996 (700k to 1.7M) tells you that they're catering to those "regular" buyers who are stepping up from a Camry, rather than their core enthusiast buyer.

BMW sold 16,000 E30 M3s, all manual, during a time when personal wealth was relatively low and as that wealth grew, so did M3 sales (E46 sold 86k units). I was born in 1981 and have lived in a wealthy area my entire life and I didn't know a single family who owned a BMW until I got to high school - and even then it was very few. Now I know several dozen and they litter the parking lot of my former high school. Literally the receptionist at my dentist office has one.

My point is that they had a core enthusiast buyer that is largely unchanged, however the sales that are generated from that demographic are now dwarfed by those who couldn't give two fucks about driving dynamics or feeling engaged while driving. What this means is that the cars have gotten softer to cater to those who like their Camry but can now afford a BMW rather than retaining that edge that enthusiasts coveted.

[jphughan]

Originally Posted by KingOfJericho

Do we actually know what the take-rate is for manuals in the M3/M4? I'm willing to bet it's still pretty high. Sure, they might be seeing a decline at present but I believe that decline will eventually trough.

In another interview, van Meel said that the take rate back in the E46 days was 50/50 between SMG/6MT, and on the E9x generation that shifted to 75/25 DCT/6MT. At the time, it was too early into the F8x launch for take rate numbers there, and I haven't seen any published since then. I suspect the 6MT numbers would look better if we only looked at the US (given that BMW made a 6MT M5/6 just for us) and if convertibles were excluded, but unfortunately those numbers weren't forthcoming. Anyhow, even though I love 6MT, I have to admit that losing half of your 6MT base from one generation to the next is a rather precipitous drop, and although BMW did keep the 6MT around for the F8x despite that, I doubt the F8x numbers were any better, so I can begrudgingly see the business case for dropping it.

[MightyMouseTech]

Originally Posted by Fundguy1

Ford GT
Chevy Z06
Lexus LFA
Nissan GTR
Viper SRT
Nof hybrids. No electrics. 2 manual transmissions

Originally Posted by Pentium

Audi R8
Mercedes AMG-GT / SLS / SLR

Acura NSX

[fecurtis]

Originally Posted by MightyMouseTech

Except they will loose the die hard manual drivers, like me, to some other brand.

To which one exactly? It's a trend not just specific to BMW.

[MightyMouseTech]

Originally Posted by fecurtis

To which one exactly? It's a trend not just specific to BMW.

Don't care. We will see when the time comes.

Somebody will still make one, and that is where my money will go.

[fecurtis]

Originally Posted by jphughan

In another interview, van Meel said that the take rate back in the E46 days was 50/50 between SMG/6MT, and on the E9x generation that shifted to 75/25 DCT/6MT. At the time, it was too early into the F8x launch for take rate numbers there, and I haven't seen any published since then. I suspect the 6MT numbers would look better if we only looked at the US (given that BMW made a 6MT M5/6 just for us) and if convertibles were excluded, but unfortunately those numbers weren't forthcoming. Anyhow, even though I love 6MT, I have to admit that losing half of your 6MT base from one generation to the next is a rather precipitous drop, and although BMW did keep the 6MT around for the F8x despite that, I doubt the F8x numbers were any better, so I can begrudgingly see the business case for dropping it.

Fun fact, the F10 M5 was initially only available with the DCT. One country had so many people throw a shit fit over it that BMW reversed course and offered a no cost manual option later on, but only in that one country that threw the big fuss over it.

That country was America. Only in the United States can you get an F10 M5 with a manual gearbox. Not sure what the actual take rate was though.

[jphughan]

Originally Posted by fecurtis

Fun fact, the F10 M5 was initially only available with the DCT. One country had so many people throw a shit fit over it that BMW reversed course and offered a no cost manual option later on, but only in that one country that threw the big fuss over it.

That country was America. Only in the United States can you get an F10 M5 with a manual gearbox. Not sure what the actual take rate was though.

Yeah I know; I said that in the post you quoted.

Although I seem to recall the 6MT being available at launch in the U.S., which granted was a few months after launches in other regions, as is typical. BMW definitely had planned not to make one at all, though. I guess the screams were heard sufficiently early on that they could plan accordingly.

[KingOfJericho]

Originally Posted by jphughan

In another interview, van Meel said that the take rate back in the E46 days was 50/50 between SMG/6MT, and on the E9x generation that shifted to 75/25 DCT/6MT. At the time, it was too early into the F8x launch for take rate numbers there, and I haven't seen any published since then. I suspect the 6MT numbers would look better if we only looked at the US (given that BMW made a 6MT M5/6 just for us) and if convertibles were excluded, but unfortunately those numbers weren't forthcoming. Anyhow, even though I love 6MT, I have to admit that losing half of your 6MT base from one generation to the next is a rather precipitous drop, and although BMW did keep the 6MT around for the F8x despite that, I doubt the F8x numbers were any better, so I can begrudgingly see the business case for dropping it.

Being that the models have sold in higher numbers with each generation, I have a feeling that the actual quantity, rather than percentage, of manual cars being produced has declined much less dramatically. Selling 30,000 manual cars certainly supports a business case for keeping them in production.

[jphughan]

Originally Posted by KingOfJericho

Being that the models have sold in higher numbers with each generation, I have a feeling that the actual quantity, rather than percentage, of manual cars being produced has declined much less dramatically. Selling 30,000 manual cars certainly supports a business case for keeping them in production.

I don't think quantity matters nearly as much as percentage. You can argue that certain development, engineering, and tooling costs are fixed, and that therefore if the car sells more units, it can make sense to take a bit of a hit offering a manual since you're at least spreading those fixed costs over a larger number of cars, but there are still per-unit costs. Additionally, as BMW grows larger overall, ancillary costs go up as well (sales, marketing, training service staff, etc, all of which get more expensive when you have to support more variants of a car), so I think BMW will continue to judge the feasibility of MT based on what percentage take rate they expect, not based on whether they can hit a minimum unit target. The value of having sold 30,000 MT cars, and therefore the extent to which that can justify increasing your development and production costs and complexity to offer MT going forward, is very different depending on how many cars you sold in total, just as the perceived value of a $10,000 salary raise is very different depending on what your salary was in the first place.

[MightyMouseTech]

BMW has continued to sell the same number of manual tranny cars, just that their sales have increased in total, so the take rate of manuals is going down.

Good article here:

http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-cult...l-transmisson/

To wit: Production of the V8 (E90) M3 just ended, and the results are in—45 of every 100 North American M3 buyers opted for a clutch pedal. That includes the convertible, a 4000-lb, V8-powered luxoboat that seems rather unpure. A very good sign.

BMW's 3 Series has grown so large that we're beginning to question its status as an enthusiast car, much less a purist's machine; the current Three has a bigger interior than the brand's first 7 Series. BMW built stick-shift Sevens in the 1980s, but the company doesn't have numbers on how few were sold. Production was so low, it probably didn't pay to count them.

Despite the dimensional bloat, the number of manual-gearbox 3 Series sold annually in North America hasn't decreased significantly in the last 25 years. Meanwhile, BMW's best automatic has evolved from a miserable four-speed to a computer-controlled eight-speed that shifts faster than any human, accelerates quicker, and offers better fuel economy.

But as a result of the Germans' single-minded quest to sell more cars, the brand is attracting incremental buyers who aren't enthusiasts. In other words, the take rate is falling.

Blame the image-conscious consumers who spend $279 a month to lease a heavily subsidized status symbol. And given that some of those amazing lease rates apply only to automatic-transmission models, and that many dealers won't even stock manual BMWs, it's a miracle that anyone buys a stick Three in the first place. The fact that the 3 Series still appeals to the same number of manual-transmission buyers as it did 25 years ago is a win for the stick. BMW just needs to wake up to it.

As for enthusiast cars, they also win. The Subaru BRZ/Scion FR-S twins—compact, rear-drive, four-cylinder coupes—are overwhelmingly bought with manuals: 70 percent for the Subie and about 60 for the Scion. The manual BRZ and FR-S are more fun than the automatic versions. Are they faster? Do you really care?

Purdy was wrong back then, and most corporate statisticians are wrong today—enthusiasts crave fun first and speed second, and the two aren't always linked. Yes, the manual has disappeared from race cars. And it's disappearing from boring cars. But the clutch pedal is alive and well. You just have to know where to look.

[NORAGRETS]

Sounds like they're gonna start making Audis instead of bmws

[NORAGRETS]

Mercedes AMG will own the HP and performance market