The SUV was controversial at its launch due to its brash styling, but now its critics have another reason to dislike it – it was given the green light over a genuine supercar. or signup to continue reading That's the claim made by British automotive journalist Steve Saxty, who has recently published a series of books, titled "BMW Behind the Scenes", detailing the German brand's design and styling decisions in the past and present. Speaking to automotive personality Joe Achilles, Mr Saxty detailed that BMW was almost ready to put a spiritual successor to the M1 supercar of the 1970s into production, until it was canned at the last minute.
. Based on the BMW Vision M Next concept from 2019, 'Project i16' was reportedly meant to be a successor to the i8 plug-in hybrid, though with greater performance credentials. "They got 95 per cent towards finishing a production version of the car," Mr Saxty said.
"They've done the body engineering [...
] so the idea of this car would have been to take the basics of the i8 and put a four-cylinder, not a three-cylinder engine in it. "That would've been breaking around two years ago [2022]. It was done during COVID.
"But they [BMW] had to make a decision; do we go with that or the XM? Wherever your head is on XM, there's value in the market in high-end, expensive SUVs. "At what point does BMW with a sports car brand [M] go with a four-cylinder car? It's easy to say they should make it, but what would you pay for it, and what would you pay for .