Initially, BMW didn’t offer all-wheel drive variants of their regular cars (non X SUVs) in the UK, because they said they could not adapt the system to work on cars with right-hand drive. Now, though, for the last two or so years, the Bavarians have started selling xDrive-equipped sedans, hatchbacks and estates on the Isle, and they’re already exceeding the numbers put in by Audi’s comparable models.
Now, you know, Audi has a whole thing with its Quattro all-wheel drive system, which is basically a brand within a brand, and one that they’ve been actively promoting for well over two decades; BMW hasn’t.
The numbers say that while Audi managed to shift 1,699 Quattro-enabled A4s, BMW trumped that with ease, selling a total of 3,655 comparable 3-Series through 2013, even though the former has a much more varied range and its all-wheel drive system is arguably much more famous than BMW’s.
Currently available in the UK only on the 3- and 1-Series, xDrive may be offered on both of BMW’s brand new coupes, the 2- and 4-Series in the country, but it’s by no means a certainty, especially for the bigger of the two.
In regards to this, Alex Morgan, the company’s UK small cars product manager said: “We’re keen to have an xDrive 2 Series. Left-hand-drive versions of the car will be available with xDrive, but there is obviously an additional engineering cost, so in the end it will come down to whether we can do the numbers to justify it.”
By Andrei Nedelea
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