BMW goes front drive

BMW will break with a lifetime of tradition by developing a front-wheel drive city car that will be on sale within three years. While it has the MINI brand offering front-wheel drive, no BMW-badged car has ever gone into production without either rear- or all-wheel drive.

However, two BMW sources admitted at the Geneva show and again at a BMW launch this week that the firm finally has a MINI-based city car under development. It will be built in Leipzig in Germany or alongside its 'cousin' at MINI's Plant Oxford.

The front-drive BMW will sit beneath the current 1-Series (and its successor) in price as Germany's prestige carmakers turn the weight of their engineering muscle onto the small car prize.

"It won't necessarily be smaller than the 1-Series," one source told us, "But it will be cheaper."

Audi launched its new A1 at the Geneva show and has some of its best people working on a replacement for the endearing A2. Mercedes-Benz is working on four models to replace the outgoing A and B-Class machines, all of which will be front-wheel drive (or all-wheel drive). One of the Benz babies will make the return of a four-door vehicle to the smart range.

The moves left BMW, the lifetime rear-drive addicts, out in the cold -- until now. But the Bavarians have hit back with a plan that not only introduces savings in development between its own model and the next generation of MINI Cooper, but a full range of city-based cars through its Mega City project as well.

Confirming the belief that Audi cancelled the A2 too early, the major German luxury players are all chasing "premium" small car buyers. While the front-drive push will be BMW's first effort -- believed to be planned for 2013 -- it won't be the last. BMW will also create a sub-brand, not unlike its go-fast M division, to make small electric city cars.

"These will be cars designed right from the start to be electric cars, so not converted combustion cars like the MINI E or the Concept Active E from Geneva," the source told the Carsales Network.

"Now we are using those cars to think about how to sell it and how to service it, but we will be doing it differently to how we do it now... Traditional sales and service operations won't suit Mega City," the BMW insider said.

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