Quote:
Originally Posted by RL530xit
Why has it taken so long for BMW to pull the wraps on the M3? It's been 1 1/2 years since the current 3 series was unveiled. I thought the M versions always came a year after the the initial debut. Is BMW waiting to debut the M3/M4 side by side?
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There have only been two generations of M3 sedan in the past (E36 and E90), and neither debuted before the M3 coupe of the same generation. For the E36, the sedan came much later than the coupe; for the E9x it was nearly the same time. With the models being split apart into the M3 and M4 there had been expectations we would see the sedan first, similar to how the M5 and M6 are handled. But now it appears that the sedan and coupe will arrive - or at the very least be revealed - at the same time (January 2014 - though official info could come sooner than that). Whether or not they will actually become available to purchase and start delivery at the same time as one another is currently unknown. It could be that the M4 is being revealed at the same time as the M3 to avoid people being confused, but it still could have a later market release. Giving the M3 sedan top billing first could leave people thinking that the coupe is gone completely or no longer a priority, which we know is not true - it's just being given a new identity.
By the way, M vehicles don't necessarily come as soon as one year after the series counterpart anyway. Obviously the E90 M3 did not come within a year of the E90 3 Series. In fact, if things were progressing on the traditional timeline, neither the M3 not M4 would be going on sale in the US until 2015 which is definitely not going to be the case, particularly for the M3. And if both are upon us mid next year, that will mean an earlier than expected release. And that will especially be true for the US where we typically see a delay from ROW. Here, we may well be looking at simultaneous world-wide (ok maybe not the entire world, but US and Europe anyway) availability along the lines of what we saw with the F30.