No standalone M car

Audi’s quattro GmbH team has done it and Mercedes-Benz’s AMG arm is about to do it for the second time, but don’t expect a standalone car from BMW's M division any time soon.

While a core group of engineers from BMW’s 40-year-old hot shop keep trying, there are no plans for the famed M name to grace the performance arm's own standalone vehicle. And this news comes from the top -- M’s head of engineering, Albert Biermann.

Speaking at the launch of the new M6 in Spain this week, Mr Biermann said the volumes M would need to produce to justify a standalone chassis would be prohibitive.

That fact hasn’t stopped Audi’s quattro division achieving enormous success with its R8 in both V8 and V10 form; nor from AMG from delivering a retro-emotive SLS and being well advanced with another, smaller standalone model.

Yet M hasn’t built a model removed from the mainstream BMW lineup since the M1 became the first full road car to bear its name in 1978. In the interim, BMW has built a selection of low-volume sportscars that don’t fit the mainstream lineup, like the well-received Z1 and the not-so-well-received Z8.

It has also embarked on its eco-venture with the i brand, which will get its own carbon-fibre sportscar, removed from M, called the i8.

“It’s not that we don’t want to, or wouldn’t like to [build a standalone car]. We don’t have the capacity to because it would have to be built on our own lines with the other cars, so it couldn’t be something like a carbon-fibre car,” Mr Biermann admitted.

“We do have the breakthroughs and can build carbon-fibre cheaper in production than any other carmaker, but there are no plans for M to do it," he admitted.

“We have very good architectures already. We can put the rear axle carrier right into the chassis but you can’t do that with other cars because we have very good BMW chassis,” he said.

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