Quote:
Originally Posted by T Bone
Oh, I dunno, the cancellation of the CS and a new Z4M come to the top of my mind.... It is also rumored they are dumping specific engines for M cars.....we are just going to get tuned regular BMW engines....
Projects that made the cut.... X5M, X6M and the 5 Series PAV.
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You cling to the rumor of an E92 M3 CSL as fact! The fact is we don't know if it was cancelled or even planned to begin with. You cannot make judgements of fact on the basis of internet rumors. And even *if* the CSL was a real car, do you think a specialty car such as the CSL has anywhere near the production and development costs of a full blown production car?
You are a nice guy and seem very intelligent. But on this, you are making all these judgements and accusations based on a mix of rumors and what you think is right.
The facts are a car like the CSL costs near nothing to develop as compared to a full scale production vehicle. In fact, when developing any car, the companies already have the engineering of any submodels built into the car. Its more a question of marketing of when you see the variants released (BMW like to do a 1 year stagger between the E90/E92/M3 -- I hope you don't think it only takes 1 year to actually develop a new car, no they stagger the release of these vehicles by a year, but all three are developed together from the start). In fact with the E46CSL the "major" engineering hurdle for them to overcome was an improved subframe. Hardly a task too difficult for BMW engineers. Most of what they did to create that car was to replace materials with lightweight materials and then work on chassis tuning, where the BMW M group shine.
The "original" E46 CSL was a side project for BMW during a time when BMW had time to greenlight a special project for a car that was not a full production car, and not even available in most markets around the globe. In fact, the only meaning the E46 CSL has to you would be in seeing pictures on the internet (I'm assuming you are from the USA).
As for the Z4M, the last generation Z4 was not to have an M variant either, again it is mostly a marketing decision in order to not undercut the standard Z4 sales. The development and production of the X5 and X6M are now down, if BMW wanted to develop a Z4 M they could turn around and start on that project right now and release the car in another few years. I think the car is actually already been developed, and BMW will release it if and when they believe the market would be ready for such a car.
As for the engines, again another rumor that none of us have any fact on, so we cannot judge what BMW is deciding to do with engines for future M cars. Once we find out, I'm sure we can all make our own educated guesses.