Photo: Automobilemag.com
The media is currently overwhelmed with all sorts of ‘exclusive’ and ‘insider’ info about the announcement BMW scheduled for later on today, at its Spartanburg plant in South Carolina.
According to a plethora of sources, the big event that is set to take place today at 1 EST will introduce and confirm the plans to bring a BMW X7 to life. Finally!
The whole story of this new model goes back a couple of years, nearly at the start of production for the company’s most popular SUV, the X5. A couple of months after the car was launched, a lot of customers noticed that despite the incredible handling and driving feel the new model offered, space was a problem.
In that regard the Audi Q7 and Mercedes-Benz GL offer more space today, not to mention the American alternatives, including the Lincoln Navigator and Cadillac Escalade. The market has been waiting for a bigger SUV from BMW.
A couple of months ago, BMW North America CEO, Ludwig Willisch was saying that there’s room for an X7, especially on the American market and that he wouldn’t be surprised to see such a car come to life in the following years.
Couple that with the enthusiasm people showed all over the internet once the slightest rumors started surfacing and you can clearly see exactly why it makes sense to stop fumbling around in useless niches and finally do a logical move and start working on making this project a real thing.
A few weeks back, BMW only said that on March 28 it will be making a big announcement that marks a new commitment to the US market and, if the rumors are confirmed, the Spartanburg plant will become the company’s biggest, overtaking the one in Germany, at Dingolfing.
At the moment, the ‘domestic’ plant has a volume of around 350,000 units per year, in 2013 manufacturing 342,600 units while the South Carolina one was responsible for 297,300 cars, all of them SUVs from the X Series range.
If the X7 will be added to the assembly lines in North America, the plant’s capacity could be increased to nearly 400,000 units, thus becoming the biggest in the world for the German manufacturer not only due to the bigger SUV but also because the X4 is bound to start production this year.
As for the biggest BMW X model, the development actually started back in 2008 but the project was dropped as the worldwide economic crisis hit. However, recent developments and the ever increasing demand for a bigger model convinced the board to restart working on the X7 and bring it to the market somewhere in 2017 or 2018.
The car will probably have a proper third row of seats and will be using one of BMW’s two new architectures that will see it share a lot of its parts with other models, making it even more profitable for the company.
The whole story of this new model goes back a couple of years, nearly at the start of production for the company’s most popular SUV, the X5. A couple of months after the car was launched, a lot of customers noticed that despite the incredible handling and driving feel the new model offered, space was a problem.
In that regard the Audi Q7 and Mercedes-Benz GL offer more space today, not to mention the American alternatives, including the Lincoln Navigator and Cadillac Escalade. The market has been waiting for a bigger SUV from BMW.
A couple of months ago, BMW North America CEO, Ludwig Willisch was saying that there’s room for an X7, especially on the American market and that he wouldn’t be surprised to see such a car come to life in the following years.
Couple that with the enthusiasm people showed all over the internet once the slightest rumors started surfacing and you can clearly see exactly why it makes sense to stop fumbling around in useless niches and finally do a logical move and start working on making this project a real thing.
A few weeks back, BMW only said that on March 28 it will be making a big announcement that marks a new commitment to the US market and, if the rumors are confirmed, the Spartanburg plant will become the company’s biggest, overtaking the one in Germany, at Dingolfing.
At the moment, the ‘domestic’ plant has a volume of around 350,000 units per year, in 2013 manufacturing 342,600 units while the South Carolina one was responsible for 297,300 cars, all of them SUVs from the X Series range.
If the X7 will be added to the assembly lines in North America, the plant’s capacity could be increased to nearly 400,000 units, thus becoming the biggest in the world for the German manufacturer not only due to the bigger SUV but also because the X4 is bound to start production this year.
As for the biggest BMW X model, the development actually started back in 2008 but the project was dropped as the worldwide economic crisis hit. However, recent developments and the ever increasing demand for a bigger model convinced the board to restart working on the X7 and bring it to the market somewhere in 2017 or 2018.
The car will probably have a proper third row of seats and will be using one of BMW’s two new architectures that will see it share a lot of its parts with other models, making it even more profitable for the company.
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