Quote:
Originally Posted by ILC32
As I stated in another thread, I was told by Martin _________ a BMW motorsports representative who flew in from Germany (accent and all, if that makes it more official) for the Chicago Auto Show that no final decision had been made on whether to sell the sedan: "He said that the new M3 would not be available until 'next year.' He said the convertable would follow a year later, and they are still studying whether to offer the sedan. He said also that the sedan was the top selling body style for the E36 M3, but then he said that there was no sedan in the E46 version, but the E46 outsold the E36."
See http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=46805
Unless the guy was simply lying, that means no M3 in the US in 2007 period, and possibly no sedan at all.
Now granted the guy was not Tom Purves, but he was a real BWWexecutive.  |
Could this simply be a matter of the US market selling a "model year 2008" when it's 2007, always one year ahead on all cars? Perhaps he had said something like, "there won't be an M3 until model year 2008" ? Which would still make it available in 2007.
I really have a hard time believing the U.S. wouldn't be getting a lot of E92 M3's during 2007, since major part of the manufacturing capacity is already reserved for the U.S. market, thus reducing the cars available on the European market. Even with the new M5, the first model year saw Finland getting a quota of 25 cars, so just 3 cars with the new M3 is really, really low. The only comparison would be the first model year of M6 which also saw Finland get only 3 cars. But since the M6 cost over 180-190.000 euros with options, that was more understandable, since there wouldn't be that many buyers to begin with. The M5 has sold quite well over here, and so has the M3, especially considering how relatively over-priced they are due to heavy car taxes. They oversell Audi S/RS models about 5:1.
Best regards,
Jussi