It wasn’t so long ago when BMW officials were proclaiming that they needed at least 1 million annual sales to survive, thus justifying their reach into new categories and markets, often with controversial models.
Today, the BMW Group delivers as many as vehicles in half a year (they sold 526,669 cars in the first three months of 2015), yet they’re still scraping for more sales by entering segments you’d never thought you’d see BMW competing in, such as front-wheel drive minivans with the new 2-Series Active Tourer (AT) and the longer Gran Tourer (GT) featured here.
You won’t be seeing either of them in the States, though, as BMW officials believe they “are too small” for this (northern) side of the pond, which is kind of ironic when you think about it, as the 5+2 seater 2-Series Gran Tourer has a similar footprint to the previous E90 3-Series sedan at 4,556 mm / 179.4 in. long (E90: 4,526 mm / 178.2 in.) and 1,800mm / 70.9 in. wide (E90: 1,816mm / 71.5 in.) with a 2,780mm / 109.4 in. wheelbase (E90: 2,760mm / 108.7 in.) on a much taller body.
Europeans that do get the new GT can choose from five turbocharged petrol and diesel engines with outputs ranging from 116PS to 192PS, with the 220d model also offering BMW’s xDrive all-wheel drive system.
You can ponder more about BMW’s move to compete in the compact minivan segment in the comments, right after you check out the new gallery of photos we’ve attached below.
Photo Gallery
