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NEWS
BMW says no to M-fettled baby SUV
M Division boss sees no opening for hotter versions of X3 and X4Audi's RS Q3 is here, the Mercedes-Benz GLA 45 AMG is coming and Porsche's Macan is in the works, but where's the hot baby BMW SUV?
The answer is: nowhere.
While it keeps its finger on the fast SUV pulse with its X5 M and X6 M, M GmbH lacks the ability to compete in the small, firey SUV class, according to M President Dr Friedrich Nitschke.
"We have some obvious possibilities, like the X3 and the X4 [if BMW was going to do an X4], but we don't have the capacity to do an X3 M or an X4 M right now," Dr Nitschke insisted last week.
"For us, an X4 is absolutely the right car to fight against the Porsche Macan, but not as an M.
"At the moment, with the possible engines and the engineering it would take, a pure M in this class is not possible."
While that will come as a relief to plenty of product planners around Stuttgart and Ingolstadt, Dr Nitschke denies BMW has been caught unprepared for the boom in hot, small SUVs.
"We would obviously like to be there but we are a relatively small organisation and we have to prioritise what we are doing as pure M cars, and that's one of the reasons we have M Performance Automobiles.
"The other major reason we won't be involved in that class is that life cycle is too short. The current X3 is in the life cycle already, so it's too late to plan and develop something on it, and with the current or coming X4, the life cycle is too short in the first generation for us to do it," he admitted.
"Maybe we have the possibility to make a special version of the X4 with M Performance Automobiles, but not M."
While the X3 is a known quantity, the production version of the X4 will be shown for the first time during January's Detroit Motor show ahead of an on-sale date in the second half of the year. As the X6 is to the X5, the X4 will carry much of the X3's mechanicals inside a sleeker, swoopier body, with a more sporting stance and a sloping rear roofline.
It will deliver restyled BMW signatures at the front, including a kidney grille and lower air intakes that have been mildly restyled from the concept version. It retains an upturned boot lip, like the X6, while the concept's pair of exhaust tips has been replaced by a single, twin-pipe outlet.
Its luggage capacity will be reduced from the X3, thanks to the sloping roof, so expect something around the 500-litre mark, and it will basically run the same engine lineup as the X3 as well, even though it will be positioned above the more established machine. It will run entry-level four-cylinder engines in both petrol and diesel layouts, while the hardest hitting engine will come from a turbocharged in-line, 3.0-litre six.
Yet, when pressed on what engines a faster, M-tweaked X4 might carry, Dr Nitschke insisted that the new M3 engine was an unlikely starter.
"We can use the M3/M4 engine [code-named S55B30], but we have in our range a lot of engine fits.
"We'd be looking more at a 1-Series engine for that. Maybe the 1M Coupe motor if we were to do it as a full M.
"The three-turbo engine as an M Performance Automobiles version is more a way we want to go."
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Written byMichael Taylor
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