Quote:
Originally Posted by Encanto
IMO, the M340i xDrive is made for this non-enthusiast community that you are talking about, in price and in performance. I get your point however, there was no F3x as close in performance and in pricing to the F8x as of now with the G2x and the G8x. Which is pushing the G8x prices higher proportionally to the F8x in its time.
Coming from 20+ years owning M3, this is different this time to me.
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Absolutely, which is why there will be more M340i's sold than M3's. But the point is not to compare the M3 to the M340i, it's to compare this M3 to M3's of the past. My point was this generation of M3 may sell more than previous generation of M3's because it has options which generally appeal more to the non-enthusiast community (torque converter auto and AWD, etc). So you'll get a higher take-rate among the non-enthusiast community which would have historically settled for the 340i or below simply because they found the M3 unapproachable from a drivability standpoint. Again, we're talking in relative terms, not absolute terms.
What'll be interesting to see is cannibalization of mid-tier G2x sales as a result of the more drivable nature of the G8x. While I'd assume most consumers are price sensitive, there's a few who are price insensitive to the extent that they can afford an M3 but may have in the past opted to go with a 340i or such.
In any case, I think it's a reasonable assumption that the more approachable nature of the G8x will result in increased sales outside the enthusiast community.