BMW Has Ruled Out Four-Cylinder M-Cars… For Now

BMW has shut the door on the idea of four-cylinder M-cars, saying the layout just doesn’t have the right qualities to satisfy buyers. We’re not going to disagree.

The company’s M Division has moved away from the scintillating, rev-chasing engines of the 2000s, which culminated in the utterly wonderful E90 series M3 and its 4.0-litre normally-aspirated V8 – not to mention the E60 M5, which basically had an F1 engine under the bonnet (okay, not really, but that’s how we’d see it if we owned one).

But it’s stopping short of losing another two cylinders after the E90 M3’s N/A V8 was swapped for a lower-revving, more brutish turbocharged V6. Speaking to Australian media in Munich, M Division boss Frank van Meel said:

“We are really happy with our six-cylinder [engines] because for BMW and BMW M that is our heritage engine. We started with six-cylinder in the M1 so it has a long history. BMW is a six-cylinder inline company and, for us, it’s an iconic engine.

“If you look at it with a four-cylinder, I don’t see characteristics that I would like on an M car, on a small displacement turbocharged four-cylinder engine. I wouldn’t do a four-cylinder standalone turbocharged with high performance, because you always have the characteristic that if you want high performance you lose the low-end torque and you lose the overall driveability you want to have from the car.”

So, while the subtext here is that modern M-cars are more laid-back and less frenetic than they were in what we might call their golden age, and that BMW has actively pursued that direction, the company still feels that dropping to four cylinders diminishes a sports car in ways that you can’t entirely overcome with clever tuning – as other German marques have found out…

Mr van Meel did say that, while there are no plans to make a four-cylinder M-badged model at any time in the company’s current plans, work is ongoing with the engineers at BMW i to develop lighter, more power-dense batteries that could pave the way for future changes in the illustrious M’s plans:

“Electrification would help because low-end torque is done with electric motors. On the other hand, you are putting a lot of weight into the car, so that answer is not so easy. To say ‘just do it’, you lose the motorsport topic of power-to-weight ratio which is very important with overall weight.

“So, at the time being, it’s a dilemma – but we are working on that with our project i colleagues to have a look at the next generation of battery cells, regarding weight, power, density and range to find the right tipping point to say ‘now it makes sense to go in that right direction…’ but today is not the right time.”

Source: CarAdvice