BMW will not be building an M4 Gran Coupe. That’s the word straight from M brand sales chief Jörg Bartels’ mouth.
Those yearning for a bustle butt sedan with a 430hp twin-turbo straight-six may be disappointed, but as Bartels told Australia’s Cars Guide, it’s just a matter of logistics.
The current 3-Series sedan — and thus the M3 — are built at BMW’s Regensburg factory while the 4-Series coupe and M4 are built in Munich. The 4-Series Gran Coupe is built in Dingolfing, and it would not make financial sense for BMW to make the necessary changes to a third plant in order to birth more Ms.
Bartels did say that the idea was considered, but it would require too much effort to modify the lines to accommodate the added structural and drivetrain variations on those lines, and BMW did not see the Gran Coupe selling in enough numbers to make it worthwhile. Thus, the idea was scrapped, along with plans for the M version of a 3-Series Gran Turismo.
So it appears that are at least some limits to BMW’s ever-expanding count of body style and drivetrain combos. Still, the current generation of M branded cars will see one more variant, the M4 convertible planned for 2015.
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