{"id":23176,"date":"2022-05-26T09:11:24","date_gmt":"2022-05-26T13:11:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=23176"},"modified":"2022-05-26T09:11:24","modified_gmt":"2022-05-26T13:11:24","slug":"bmw-m-boss-why-standalone-model-suv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=23176","title":{"rendered":"BMW M Boss: Why The New Standalone Model Had To Be An SUV"},"content":{"rendered":"

When BMW unveiled the Vision M Next in June 2019, many enthusiasts were left wondering whether the concept would evolve into a production car. Shortly after its world premiere, former chief of engineering Klaus Frohlich didn\u2019t exclude the arousing possibility, mentioning a road-going version would happen with enough interest from customers. Fast forward to August 2020, the company officially pulled the plug on the hybrid supercar<\/a>, citing prohibitive development costs.<\/p>\n

So, rather than getting a low-slung, two-door sports car as a natural follow-up to the iconic M1<\/a>, the second dedicated M car ever will be a large SUV. But why is that the case? Autoblog<\/em> spoke with M boss Frank van Meel at the Concorso d\u2019Eleganza Villa d\u2019Este 2022 and found out why they chose the XM over a street-legal Vision M Next<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWhen we did the M1, every car company that wanted to say \u2018I have something special\u2019 built a sports car \u2014 that was the segment everyone wanted to enter. If you look today at the biggest, most important, and fastest-growing segment, it\u2019s clearly the SUV segment. And, in comparison to other manufacturers, we were still lacking this ultimate expressive luxury flagship at the top of M.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Frank van Meel<\/a> further justified the decision by saying there is a connection between the XM and motorsport like the strong link between the M division\u2019s cars for the road and track:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIn our 50-year heritage, we\u2019ve always looked at racing and series-production cars to see where each one is going and what they can learn from each other. We\u2019re continuing this with the XM: it has a V8 PHEV system and [the LMDh hypercar] also has a V8 hybrid drivetrain. You can see that when it works for racing, it also works for the high-performance cars.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The top brass at the M division says the analysis conducted internally shows the XM<\/a> represented the \u201cbiggest demand\u201d coming from customers. In other words, the majority has spoken, and it apparently prefers an SUV over a coupe.<\/p>\n

While another mid-engined car is sadly not on the agenda, the M division will celebrate its 50th anniversary in a big way. The recently unveiled M4 CSL is believed to spawn a 3.0 CSL with a manual gearbox, rear-wheel drive, and 600 horsepower on tap. It\u2019s said to be a coachbuilt project limited to 50 examples at approximately 750,000 euros a pop. It won\u2019t be a true M1 successor, but still, an exceptional way to end 2022 during which we will have seen the M3 Touring, M2 G87<\/a>, and of course, the production-ready XM.<\/p>\n

Source: Autoblog<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When BMW unveiled the Vision M Next in June 2019, many enthusiasts were left wondering whether the concept would evolve into a production car. Shortly after its world premiere, former chief of engineering Klaus Frohlich didn\u2019t exclude the arousing possibility, mentioning a road-going version would happen with enough interest from customers. Fast forward to August […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":23177,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}