Quote:
Originally Posted by chask
It did make sense, up until that part about BMW "buying time to be in the market for another 2-3 years". What happens then? Or is this just the standard car company thing of looking 2-3 years down the road?
Actually I believe design and product cycles are closer to 5 or 6 years but the hard core look (committed to actually making something specific and any hope of changing things has passsed) is around 3 years from what I have seen - at least with the domestics. I would imagine about everyone is on a similar schedule. It's just the logistics of making that many of one thing and getting all your suppliers in line - just in time scheduling, etc.
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Buying time for another 2-3 years by the time the next generation of M6 comes in. No BMW is not a standard car company, but they have to sell their cars when there are other competitors such as CLS63/E63/RS7,… out there so they have to compete with them right?
On the other hand, BMW is losing a big market of "high performance exotic cars". Mercedes has introduced the entry level AMG GTS, Audi already has R8, Porsche has GT3/GT3 RS and who knows if GT2/GT2 RS are on the way! McLaren, Ferrari, Lamo are already in that market. BMW doesn't have any car for that market and maybe the next M6 is close (and not exactly the same) but for now (2-3 years even less if they have already started designing something like M8) the only thing they can offer is "more power and torque" for their flagship car (which is M6)... If you read other threads, many M6 owners have already thought about their next car and you can see how many of them are looking for that exotic market ... read this thread:
http://www.6post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1111177