Quote:
Originally Posted by batislav
Obviously, BMW could be underestimating the sales potential of a car of the type several people have described, but there are enough available metrics for them to justify devoting development resources in other directions. Maybe once the Euro crisis is resolved they'll be willing to devote more RD to a smaller more performance based car.
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Wouldn't be the first time they underestimate sales potential!.
Quote Automobile Magazine:
For that reason, car companies will produce a model only if they can sell it in sufficient numbers to turn a profit. Often, any enthusiast bent is watered down in favor of features that appeal to the broader public. This is a slippery slope with a shiny new Toyota Camry parked at the bottom. Great car, big appeal, huge profits, but nothing that enthusiasts dream of.
Over at BMW's M division, the dream has always been preserved -- at least to some extent. The first full-fledged M car, the M1, was a racing homologation special; it was almost all dream and no mainstream. The M1 didn't make it to America (officially), but a few years later, the E30-chassis M3 did, and you can imagine the dealers' angst: it was 95 percent race car for the street and 5 percent uh-oh, how are we gonna sell this thing? After all, its buzzy four-banger had two fewer cylinders than the sonorous 325i, it was barely quicker in a straight line, and it was vastly more expensive.
BMW was worried that it wouldn't be able to sell the 5000 M3s worldwide that it needed for racing homologation, but as it turned out, 18,000 of them rocketed out of dealership parking lots -- at full opposite lock, one would hope. Through the thick clouds of pungent tire smoke, however, the only thing the corporate guys smelled was money.