[mbanck]

Originally Posted by Inductive

I might be old school, but my German car "Made in Mexico" …seems… yeah, I'm not going to say it.

Let's hope they don't expand their factories to other weird places like the US or China...

[CCM11285]

Originally Posted by mbanck

Let's hope they don't expand their factories to other weird places like the US or China...

Or India, Brazil, South Africa and Austria

They would never do this

[SCOTT26]

Originally Posted by JohnEnglish

Has BMW ever even considered the idea of a M4 Grand Coupe?

We have the M4 Gran Coupe. Although It's the i4 M50. It looks seriously fast on a track.

[SCOTT26]

Originally Posted by JayR_e92

So will the G81 M3 be coming to US?

I did a quick search and all I see is a petition..

Has anyone confirmed if we will get it!?

No G81 in the North American market.

[JohnEnglish]

Originally Posted by SCOTT26

We have the M4 Gran Coupe. Although It's the i4 M50. It looks seriously fast on a track.

Well it's an "M Performance" model and I'm not interested in EVs.

[BCM240]

This is super informative. Thank you!

[tuffode]

Originally Posted by SCOTT26

We have the M4 Gran Coupe. Although It's the i4 M50. It looks seriously fast on a track.

No we don't. We have the i4 M50, just like you said.

[Mako]

Originally Posted by tuffode

No we don't. We have the i4 M50, just like you said.

Really makes you wonder what the internal discussions were on this.

So no M4 GC, instead they made the high performance electric in the gran coupe form. They went as far as putting a lot of M model specific things on it like the mirrors (never seen that on M performance model before), seats look damn close to the M seats...
But WHY not just make it the iM4??? give it that little extra power the IX M60 will have, full blown M hood, wider rear, full M interior. Charge $80,000 for it. OR maybe thats coming in 1-2 years

[mbanck]

Originally Posted by Mako

Really makes you wonder what the internal discussions were on this.

So no M4 GC, instead they made the high performance electric in the gran coupe form. They went as far as putting a lot of M model specific things on it like the mirrors (never seen that on M performance model before),

The regular M440i Gran Coupe has the same M performance things, and its market release is earlier.

seats look damn close to the M seats...
But WHY not just make it the iM4??? give it that little extra power the IX M60 will have, full blown M hood, wider rear, full M interior. Charge $80,000 for it. OR maybe thats coming in 1-2 years

Who knows, maybe they'll do that. I guess it makes sense to not introduce the highest tier right away, the high-performance M models always come later.

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by Mako

But WHY not just make it the iM4???

Because BMW is an internal mess right now trying to onboard a new CEO and get all the product lines aligned to his vision of the future?

I'm speculating, but when a new CEO replaces a guy who was barely there for 4 years it ain't to keep all the same projects & products.

[mbanck]

Originally Posted by GrussGott

Because BMW is an internal mess right now trying to onboard a new CEO and get all the product lines aligned to his vision of the future?

I'm speculating, but when a new CEO replaces a guy who was barely there for 4 years it ain't to keep all the same projects & products.

I don't know - I understand y'all get worked up on the M mirrors, but this seems to be a decision probably made by somebody at M GmbH well below the BMW CEO.

Also, Zipse has been CEO for almost two years now, it's not like he showed up a few weeks ago and said "from now on we'll put M mirrors on every M performance model".

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by mbanck

Also, Zipse has been CEO for almost two years now, it's not like he showed up a few weeks ago and said "from now on we'll put M mirrors on every M performance model".

Almost 2 years? Dude, FYI, that's about 2 years short of the time it takes to restructure product lines at an industrial manufacturing business. You gotta replace / restructure / redirect the people - that'll typically be 6-9 months. Then the new/newly directed people have to come up with and get approvals on the new direction - that's another 6-9 months. Then you have to start making the changes - that could take 1-2 years or longer depending on the timelines, supply chains, existing product life & sales cycles.

So, yeah, 3-4 years minimum.

On my last tour of the Munich plant (2018) they showed us robots being re-programmed and told us it typically takes 9-12 months to set them up & complete all of the testing ... so there's the time before that when they're designing & getting approvals, the actual set up design, then the set up & testing, and then - assuming supply chains are aligned, which is a bigh assumption nowadays - production can start.

BMW product cycles are 7-8 years.

[Bemari]

Originally Posted by Mako

They went as far as putting a lot of M model specific things on it like the mirrors (never seen that on M performance model before), seats look damn close to the M seats...

The i4 M50 xDrive has proper M seats standard. Similar to M4 standard ones, only minor differences in upholstery. You can get these M seats optional (option code 711) to 3 and 4 series models in conjunction with M Sport package.

[mbanck]

ynguldyn not very important, but the bullet list markup is broken for the June/July updates

[maaaster]

M440i not coming to US?

[ynguldyn]

M4 CSL. Looking forward to a long dedicated thread.

[fsfikke]

Originally Posted by Juvi

The i4 M50 xDrive has proper M seats standard. Similar to M4 standard ones, only minor differences in upholstery. You can get these M seats optional (option code 711) to 3 and 4 series models in conjunction with M Sport package.

Not as standard, it's an optional extra. And no choice for Merino leather unfortunately.

[redlineblog]

Originally Posted by ynguldyn

M4 CSL. Looking forward to a long dedicated thread.

New M headlights – is it known whether these will be a different shape, or simply a different light signature inside?

The leaked pics of G87's front bumper suggest different headlight shapes for M cars could now be a thing (G20/G80 difference aside).

[PLF69]

Originally Posted by SCOTT26

We have the M4 Gran Coupe. Although It's the i4 M50. It looks seriously fast on a track.

It may be fast but can it go trough more than one 30min session before needing a recharge.. ?

We start to see more and more EV's come to the track and without chargers at the track they rarely do a full day. Having to exit to find a supercharger that is available and losing almost half your sessions gets boring pretty fast.

I just don't see EV being viable for track day fun until batteries can go 2k km on a charge and weight nothing so cars can be reasonable weight to be ok on consumables.

[TheBingoBalls]

Originally Posted by Mako

Really makes you wonder what the internal discussions were on this.

So no M4 GC, instead they made the high performance electric in the gran coupe form. They went as far as putting a lot of M model specific things on it like the mirrors (never seen that on M performance model before), seats look damn close to the M seats...
But WHY not just make it the iM4??? give it that little extra power the IX M60 will have, full blown M hood, wider rear, full M interior. Charge $80,000 for it. OR maybe thats coming in 1-2 years

Perhaps that's all that BMW could come up with and it didn't quite fit to become a full "M4". Not saying that they're half-assing it, but if the i4 M50i was really an electric M car, people would be losing their shit right now. I'm ok with the electric line up and knowing electric M cars are coming is enough for me. I would rather a complete model than have something that lacks in areas that carries a $100k price tag (see: eTron GT RS, Taycan).

[The_Werm]

Many tracks/events in Florida do not allow EVs, like Sebring

[hellrotm]

Originally Posted by redlineblog

New M headlights – is it known whether these will be a different shape, or simply a different light signature inside?

The leaked pics of G87's front bumper suggest different headlight shapes for M cars could now be a thing (G20/G80 difference aside).

I was thinking the same thing? The only thing I don't get about the bumper leak.