Comments on: Confirmed: BMW planning at least one new small front-drive car

By: scratchy

scratchy — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:25:27 +0000

this must be the new Isetta , BMW said they plan to revive that name.

By: CajuRican

CajuRican — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:05:01 +0000

Booo!! Hissss!!!

By: Beefcake

Beefcake — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 04:06:42 +0000

Lame… further supporting those who are cheap but also want badge.

By: spg900

spg900 — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 02:24:02 +0000

^^ Yeah, having another automaker who happens to make daring designs to choose from is just horrible. Your an auto enthousiast you say?

By: howsmydriving

howsmydriving — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:53:28 +0000

This is the worst car news since Fiat’s re-emergence in North America….

By: leftwingagenda

leftwingagenda — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:24:44 +0000

well, when you see what corners are cut in order to make a 25k bmw, i’m pretty sure there will be criticisms like, “this plastic doesn’t feel like a bmw” and so forth…or if it has the features and interior quality of a bmw, it will be open to criticisms over performance (since you can’t have both for 25k)…i agree with h82w8 on this, they have a luxury image, so it’s going to hurt the brand when somebody gets in and taps the dash and finds its the same plastic that’s in a hyundai…or god forbid an auto editor finds a piece of plastic that’s worse than a hyundai, then they’re screwed…

bmws and minis aren’t known as the easiest on the wallet when it comes to maintenance either, and that’s more of a factor for the folks buying cars at that level…if vw fixes it’s reputation problem with regards to reliability, then it’ll take a lot to trump the gti in this segment (it sounds like we’re talking about gti-range cars here)…

By: h82w8

h82w8 — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:25:53 +0000

Brand betrayal, at least in the US. In Europe this would likely be fine.

BMW is a luxury item. Pricing it otherwise dilutes the brand cache.

By: zoomzoomer

zoomzoomer — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:44:07 +0000

The bottom line is that the pedestrian 1-series hatchbacks aren’t nearly as efficient or cost-competitive as their Euro Focus/Golf/A3 peers, so it would probably be less expensive to produce the 1-series replacement on this FWD platform that could be easily modified to AWD for the uprated Focus ST/GTI/S3-competing models. Either way, I doubt any FWD BMW will ever make it to the US unless branded as a Mini (or the CAFE restrictions become insurmountable).

By: johnnycanuck

johnnycanuck — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:33:39 +0000

I don’t really think it would hurt anything leftwing. What would hurt them is a $25k BMW that doesn’t perform as well as a $20k something else… but if it is as good as anything in its price range then where’s the foul?

By: leftwingagenda

leftwingagenda — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:21:30 +0000

of course i agree with that statement, jake ;P pandering to the masses is not what the Ultimate Driving Machine is for! in reality, they need to do this for fuel economy standards more than anything…i do think a 25k fwd bmw hurts the brand…there’s a reason that 318ti thing died off quick…

By: muycaliente

muycaliente — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:13:51 +0000

finally! i hope the make it a 2/3rds series….

i’d buy one

By: JakeK66

JakeK66 — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:54:06 +0000

Yeah leftwing – how dare they make a model we could afford!

By: leftwingagenda

leftwingagenda — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:41:21 +0000

nooooooooo!

By: JakeK66

JakeK66 — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:37:14 +0000

I’m still thinking they want a C Segment hatch/sedan.coupe thing (GTI sized)- not the B segment Mini is positioned in due to them not wanting to compete internally.

I’d be very interested in a sub $25,000 BMW. That’s a sweet spot in the market the GTI dominates in now.

By: bigdman

bigdman — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:32:13 +0000

really interesting to see how it’ll b named…

0.5 series? mayb bmw 1fi??

lol anyways… any1 know if its available in NA??

I’d like to see this, A1 and saab 9-1 in the market, i love the illustrations i’ve seen on the internet of the 9-1

By: GeneralSTL

GeneralSTL — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:59:41 +0000

“BMW created its MINI sub-brand in an effort to market smaller cars without tarnishing its luxury brand image, but now the automaker is more concerned with retaining market share and taking advantage of production efficiencies than maintaining its image as a large luxury car maker.”

Hmmm…..I question whether or not this is a wise move. On the one hand, it could potentially tarnish the BMW brand, but on the other hand, as long as the upper models maintain their image and this FWD stuff isn’t spread throughout the BMW line-up, they should be okay. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.

By: atoms

atoms — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:51:04 +0000

“The Megacity will be smaller than the MINI, and priced accordingly.” I hope they can keep their word on that..