BMW Considered M Supercar Before Producing 1M Coupe

BMW considered making an M supercar while the 1M Coupe was in planning, but decided against it. In an interview with Egmcartech, Matt Russell, the head of North America's M Car Division.

“A lot of people come to me and ask, does M need a supercar? We’ve had the choice to do something like that that when we were planning the 1-Series M Coupe. Amongst its development, we all pondered: do we do a supercar as in a mid-engined wedge, or some super high-priced front-engined wedge?,” said Russell. “We’ve discussed these possibilities. But ultimately, we didn’t feel the need to make a very exclusive high-end supercar and we still don’t. I already firmly believe that we produce supercars, except that they’re two in one: an executive car with supercar performance. They are the essence of BMW M-Cars,” said Russell. 

Russell also made the argument that BMW does not have a higher-end M-car because the company can make cheaper, still-competitive cars cheaper by basing them off of current chassis. 

“I look at those cars in two different ways: cosmetically and at a performance stand point. Sure the Lexus, Audi, Mercedes and Porsche all created supercars with a great deal of sex appeal. But I see our M cars as sexy too. Performance wise, they’re not doing anything that we haven’t already done in a two-door sports coupe or four-door sports sedan, thus there’s no huge performance breakthrough on those cars that we can’t create or sell at a lower price point. All of that said, we don’t think the BMW M buyer needs a super exclusive and super expensive car because of what they get from our current M-Cars," said Russell.

His argument makes sense when you look at what BMW has been doing with its M-cars.

Source egmcartech