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Carsguide has seen the car in Munich and can confirm the early details, despite more than a year of official denials. The pocket rocket will be called the 1-Series M Coupe - not the M1 - will be powered by a 3-litre turbo petrol engine with as much as 270 kiloWatts, and will be priced right on $100,000. That will place it in similar performance territory as the M3 but with a $60,000-plus discount.
The baby M Coupe has been mooted for some time. In Munich last week, the car sat in the M Division carpark and though it was accessible to journalists, BMW engineer Albert Biermann would not allow the bonnet to be lifted and would not confirm firm specs for the powerplant.
Despite the cars quad tail pipes, it is not a V8 and doesn’t have a bonnet bulge for the bent-eights intake box. It is more likely the 3-litre in-line six from the new Z4 335si but with a power upgrade from its 250kW. Think 255kW-270kW.
It could use one of BMWs new line of twin-scroll turbochargers rather than the bi-turbo set up of the 335i range. Biermann says the 1-Series M Coupe will have the same power and torque as the E46 M3 built from 2000 that had a 3.2-litre six cylinder engine. The E46 pumped 252kW and 365Nm and covered the 0-100km/h sprint in 4.8 seconds. But the 1-Series will be faster, he says.
While the 1-Series gets a bigger engine to do battle on the streets, other Ms are going the other way. Biermann says the next M5 – due late next year – would lose the V10 engine in favour of a turbocharged V8.
The next M3, however, will stay with a V8 engine although it may be downsized. The smaller powerplants are being introduced to lower emissions and fuel consumption.
But Biermann is adamant performance won’t suffer as the M division continues to exploit weight-saving methods. Further use of carbon-fibre, magnesium and aluminium are mooted.
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