BMW’s range of cars is already a bit confusing, and I personally find lots of models in their lineup as irrelevant, and overlapping. Thankfully, they’re not going to propagate this to the i sub-brand, and thus avoid creating extra confusion. They will be keeping their sporty and eco lines of cars separate, and according to a report published by Car Advice, “No M engineers worked on the hybrid supercar project.”
If the car turns out to be really good to drive, though, all credits will go to BMW’s regular, non-M engineers, giving them confidence for future projects. You may think that it’s not that big of an issue for large companies like BMW, but I believe it is, especially since I’m sure the Bavarians are taking a bit of a gamble with the i range.
This bit of news means that there will be no i8 M (or…Mi8) at any time, and no collaboration between the departments in the future, either.
Present at the Frankfurt motor show, BMW Group head of technology communications Cypselus von Frakenberg commented on the matter. He said “I don’t think that it would make sense to mix these two sub-brands in one car. We have the Ms, we have the is, and we have the BMW, the core brand” – plus, there’s also Alpina to consider here too.
By Andrei Nedelea
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