Photo: BMW
We need to realize a couple of things, right away: 20 years ago doesn’t mean in the 80s, gas prices are no longer small and BMW is making front-wheel drive cars. Show that previous sentence to a time traveller and he might just have a heart attack. Especially from that last statement.
Ok, we’ve gone a bit off, but what we meant to say is that times change and so do car manufacturers. What was previously unfathomable is now happening and BMW is offering front-wheel drive car(s) to the masses.
Admittedly, there were some issues with such a platform from the get go as one of the engineers that worked on the 2 Series Active Tourer said to Car Advice in an interview.
The development of the first FWD car from Munich began around 5 years ago. Back then, even the high wigs from Bavaria considered making the 2SAT anything else but RWD a mistake but as they dove further into the matter, they realized that nothing but a front-wheel drive platform made sense for an MPV.
“To bring this car to market we realized we needed a front-wheel-drive. Sure, we had a discussion which kind of car would be the outcome with RWD, but we saw very very fast that it makes no sense,” said Martin Schuster, one of the chief development managers for the 2 Series Active Tourer.
Some factors played bigger parts than others. BMW knew it wanted a new car that would have a big conquer rate (the amount of customers that are new to the brand). In this regard, the company had no choice but create a new architecture that would be the basis for multiple models from now on. That’s the UKL platform.
Coincidentally (or not) the new MINI models are also built on this platform, so you could say BMW used the British company’s experience with FWD architectures to create their own cars.
Another thing most people forget is that the engineers were more than excited to work on such a car. That’s because they were working on something unique for BMW, it was a big challenge.
“The engineers, you can challenge them and say be proud of doing a car that is absolutely new for BMW. For me it was one time in your life a chance to make such a revolution for BMW. So that was great,” Martin admitted.
Admittedly, there were some issues with such a platform from the get go as one of the engineers that worked on the 2 Series Active Tourer said to Car Advice in an interview.
The development of the first FWD car from Munich began around 5 years ago. Back then, even the high wigs from Bavaria considered making the 2SAT anything else but RWD a mistake but as they dove further into the matter, they realized that nothing but a front-wheel drive platform made sense for an MPV.
“To bring this car to market we realized we needed a front-wheel-drive. Sure, we had a discussion which kind of car would be the outcome with RWD, but we saw very very fast that it makes no sense,” said Martin Schuster, one of the chief development managers for the 2 Series Active Tourer.
Some factors played bigger parts than others. BMW knew it wanted a new car that would have a big conquer rate (the amount of customers that are new to the brand). In this regard, the company had no choice but create a new architecture that would be the basis for multiple models from now on. That’s the UKL platform.
Coincidentally (or not) the new MINI models are also built on this platform, so you could say BMW used the British company’s experience with FWD architectures to create their own cars.
Another thing most people forget is that the engineers were more than excited to work on such a car. That’s because they were working on something unique for BMW, it was a big challenge.
“The engineers, you can challenge them and say be proud of doing a car that is absolutely new for BMW. For me it was one time in your life a chance to make such a revolution for BMW. So that was great,” Martin admitted.
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