Quote:
Originally Posted by Rick955
I get what you are all saying. I guess I'm just getting tired of BMW diminishing the "M" line. Remember some years back when everyone was grabbing M badges on eBay and sticking them next to their normal badges? No need to do that anymore... BMW does it for you now! Everything has an M variant. Unlike AMG which doesn't bastardize that line, BMW has just overdone it. I know it's all about sales and shareholders. I'm glad they at least made the new G8x's LOOK unique... at least for now. But you watch, a few years from now if the sales are hot, they will put an M appearance package on the 3 and 4 series to give it the M3/M4 "look" to pad their sales. Engine performance has already gone that route where it used to be a more significant difference, and now it's approaching that of the actual M cars... the X3M, M440, M550i, etc. This is what you read now... "The M550i gains 67 horsepower and 73 lb-ft of torque, making this 523-hp sedan an even more appealing alternative to the more expensive M5 sport sedan."
I am definitely going with the new M3. Going with a color not offered on the 3 or 4 series, and gonna love it and enjoy the uniqueness while I can! 
Anyway, the thread says "Why is BMW M going in a new direction?".  |
I don't understand this complaint at all. The M branding on the M340i is no different than the AMG branding on the C 43 AMG. I would even argue that this is even less ambiguous than AMG's branding since it is still quite clear in BMW's case that the M340i is not an M3.
As for performance, there is way more to performance than
just HP and torque. A M5 is still vastly different than an M550i regardless of their power figures.