INDUSTRY NEW
Stand-alone M sports model not in the charts for this Bavarian star
BMW’s hot shop won’t bow to pressure for a supercar writes Michael Taylor
M is busy upgrading its production cars and developing its M Performance brand, says BMW Group sales and marketing director Ian Robertson. Its German rivals launched their second-generation stand-alone sports cars over the past two years, with Mercedes-Benz’s AMG delivering the short, sharp GT and GT S coupe and Audi Sport bringing its second R8 and R8 Spyder to market. Yet BMW’s M has stood firm, without a stand-alone model since the 1981 M1, and led still by the overweight M5, the overwrought M6, an M3-M4 pairing perilously close to GT territory and a host of hotted-up SUVs. The real driver’s flagship in the range is acknowledged as the M2, the first car fully developed under the reign of M boss Franciscus van Meel. BMW does have a swoopy coupe to rival Porsche’s 911, but it chose to deliver that car as a flagship for its eco-friendly i brand, with a carbon fibre architecture and a plug-in hybrid powertrain featuring a three-cylinder petrol motor. "We have no plan at the moment fo...
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