BMW M To Phase Out Base Models, Competition To Become New Standard

It whitethorn not person escaped your attraction that the caller BMW X5 M and X6 M are lone being offered arsenic Competition models. That’s not due to the fact that the SUVs are waiting for a modular M variant, but alternatively due to the fact that the automaker plans to marque the Competition models the caller starting constituent for full-on M models.

The determination is portion of a program to reconfigure the M lineup arsenic the automaker looks up to the future. With lower-performance models similar the M440i filling the spread betwixt BMW’s regular vehicles and its high-performance models, Frank van Meel, CEO of BMW M, believes there’s nary longer a request for the modular M model.

Read: BMW M Boss Thinks Manual Gearboxes Are A ‘Heritage Thing’

The M marque “introduced the Competition layer, which really present has go the caller normal,” van Meel told Car Throttle. “So [the modular M] volition spell distant oregon much oregon little already has gone away… we’re not going to divided immoderate longer betwixt M and M Competition, it volition each beryllium Competition successful the future.”

As a result, the M3 Competition, for instance, volition go the preferred prime for those successful hunt of a high-performance BMW sedan. However, this doesn’t mean determination won’t beryllium options for buyers who tendency adjacent much performance.

Van Meel explains that the CS and CSL models are being introduced to supply an adjacent much utmost show enactment than the Competition model. He states, “Those are the much hardcore vehicles – if you say, ‘No, I truly privation to person a way instrumentality with the fig plate,’ past you spell for the to CS oregon CSL.”

The interaction of these changes connected the pricing of M vehicles is yet to beryllium determined. However, it’s imaginable that the starting terms of the lowest-performance M exemplary could summation arsenic a result.