Quote:
Originally Posted by CWads69
LOL... it's a nice car, but like an M2? Really? Not even close. And I guess I would question the continued micro separation of the product line, is this car even necessary? Same for the 4 series GC. Thought 2 was coupe, 3 was sedan, 4 coupe, etc.? It's confusing to any except the enthusiasts, equally as bad as the AMG line. With the M340i such a nice car all around, my question is why this one. Maybe someone else can explain it... to me, it just dilutes the brand, confuses the consumer, and increases productions costs... for how much market share? Puzzling to me...
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I don’t like the car, what it represents or how it looks but I see the point from a business standpoint. Every successive generation of car has pressure to get nicer, more comfortable, faster and generally improved over the last version. That means that generally speaking cars will get a little bigger and a little more expensive as they stay on the market through multiple generations. Therefore BMW needs to start heading downmarket, both as a natural consequence of this continued improvement and to keep up with their competitors.
Luckily for them, they already have a chassis willing to go with the fwd based mini platform. That means they can sell something that has excellent interior packaging, which is probably why they went 4-doors. At the same time BMW sees themselves as this stylish, premium company, so they figured they’d make it extra swoopy and a 4-door coupe. Plus...hey worked for Mercedes.
I think that’s also why BMW started pushing the big grille recently, they want people to instantly be able to recognize a car as a BMW, even (especially?) if it’s a fwd based econobox being sold for significantly more money than other, similar fwd based econoboxes. If everyone knows at just a glance that you’re driving a BMW, that extra money for the car hurts less to many people.