E30 Zone

Bought a copy of "car" maganize the other day as it had a the new M3 on it and an e30 m3 and inside they say that the M3 will only be a four door and a "m3 coupe" will be called the M4, seams odd to me as i would have guessed they sell more coupe M3s than four doors so would make sence to keep the name associated with the best selling style of the M3 and M3 not change the legend and heritage of the M3 coupe to being an M4.

Is there an obvious reason why thay im missing?[/img]

It's just the stupid new naming convention bmw have.

They've tried to separate the saloon and coupe, so the three series is the four door, the four series is the coupe.

I don't really get it. Everyone knows the 4 is just a coupe version of the 3, I don't think both saloon and coupe being sold as three series' for decades before harmed sales at all.

Well Ya and why not make the 4 door the M4 and the coupe the M3

My M3 is a Saloon

makes sense, as they had 1, 3 ,5 & 7. The obvious question is where the F is the 2 & 4??

They kind of did the same thing years ago when they introduced the 6 series - why should that not have been the 5 series coupe? Because they wanted the 6 to be more exclusive and seperated from the 5 so they could charge more and make it seem more upmarket. This is what they're trying to do now with the 1 series coupe in to the 2 series and the 3 series coupe in to the 4 series.

They've made subtle design changes so that the new 1 series and 3 series (saloons) don't look exactly like the 2 and 4 series (coupes), so they're trying to create more exclusive, upmarket cars in the coupe versions.

It does seem kind of silly, along with the heritage of the M3 thing, but if you think about it, it does fit in with the 6 series thing now. Although that being said, they do make a 6 series 4 door now, so who knows when they'll start making 2 and 4 series 4 doors

The 4Series Gran Tourismo (4dr) is coming. Just waiting for the 2Series version to come along now and it'll all make sense!

there is the 2 series "active tourer" or people carrier as it should be known...

The sad thing is BMW probably paid some marketing 'gurus ' millions who told them this was a great idea. The reality is it is incredibly stupid in everyway. In one fell swoop they have thrown away the M3 'brand' and the nigh on thirty years of heritage and kudos that goes with it .

Anyway, we all know the M brand is no longer anything special, you just need to trawl around the forums and laugh at the peasants boasting about their 520d 'M Sport' to know that

Re the original 6 series, why sell it short and call it a 5 ? It had NOTHING in common with a 5 series except the oily bits and was targeted at a completely different audience for vastly more money.

\\\M..arketing.

I thought the 3 series would be getting retired eventually?
Most have got the wrong end of the stick.


It doesn't annoy me as much as badges.

M135i = 3 liter
123d = 2 liter

bab-91 wrote:I thought the 3 series would be getting retired eventually?
Most have got the wrong end of the stick.


It doesn't annoy me as much as badges.

M135i = 3 liter
123d = 2 liter

Yes but that goes back a long way.

E30 316, 1.8 litre.

Still grinds my gears but at least the e30 316i had a bigger engine than the badge suggests.

No the 316i had a 1.6 M40, the 316 (carb) had a 1.8 M10

Hardly the same though Barry, slightly more or less cc than the badge states is fine, but when the badge says 328i and its actually a 4 pot 2.0 donk its a bit strange dont you think?

BMW were silly to rename the new 3 Series Coupe or M3 Coupe as the 4 Series Coupe or M4 Coupe IMO. Doesn't look that different to the 3 Series Saloon. 4 Series Coupe is a lot better looking in real life than in the pictures especially in Estoril Blue.

In the future everyone will be wanting the greatest 6 cylinder M3 ever made the E46 M3.

BMW were even more silly with this FWD BMW throwing away years of heritage and marketing
And all these different niches though based on similar platforms to save costs. I don't know about you but confuses me
Why would I want a 3/5 Series GT ? Why would I want M6 Gran Coupe over M5 Saloon ? They models cannonballise each other ie take sales from each other because they target same groups of customers

Fuck the bean counters
Fuck the marketing idiots
Bring real power to the engineers and lets have some proper BMWs with a 9000 rpm NA red line and 120 bhp per litre specific output and under 1300kg
Sticky Michelin Pilot Supersport as standard
6 pot front brakes
4 pot rear brakes

n/a is dead, killed by the tree huggers. You have to used massively stressed turbo 3 or 4 pots now....