Photo: j.b.cars/Instagram
Ladies and gentlemen drivers, here's a not-very-good rendering portraying the next-gen BMW 2 Series Coupe. Fortunately, the actual car will look much slender, since it is expected to retain its rear-wheel-drive form.
There's been quite a lot of agitation surrounding the FWD switch of the new BMW compact vehicle family (more on this below). Fortunately, it looks like the 2 Series Coupe, perhaps along with the Gran Coupe, will continue to be underpinned by a RWD-based platform.
Of course, the current architecture will be retired, with the Coupes set to switch to the CLAR platform that now serves an incredibly large number of BMW models.
Among others, this means we can cross our fingers for the Bavarian automaker introducing a successor to the M2.
There's also bad news, as the 2 Series Convertible will probably be axed, with the carmaker wishing to steer open-top customers towards the new Z4. That's a shame, since the compact cabriolet delivered a brilliant daily experience (those of you willing to dive deeper into this matter can check out this review we delivered back in the day).
As for the rest of the 2 Series family, which will include the Active Tourer and the larger Gran Tourer seven-seater, these will continue to be underpinned by the UKL FWD-based platform.
For the new 1 Series, the loss of its RWD underpinnings has brough an extra downside in terms of performance. You see, the said UKL platform means the hatch can no longer be fitted with BMW's famous straight-six, since this requires a longitudinal layout, whereas the new architecture uses a transverse layout. And while a turbo-four or a turbo-three might pack sweet output numbers these days, sunch enginen can't offer the character of an inline-six.
Sure, the German automotive producer will still offer xDrive versions of these cars. However, you shouldn't expect these to be as tail-happy as the all-paw BMWs based on RWD architectures.
Of course, the current architecture will be retired, with the Coupes set to switch to the CLAR platform that now serves an incredibly large number of BMW models.
Among others, this means we can cross our fingers for the Bavarian automaker introducing a successor to the M2.
There's also bad news, as the 2 Series Convertible will probably be axed, with the carmaker wishing to steer open-top customers towards the new Z4. That's a shame, since the compact cabriolet delivered a brilliant daily experience (those of you willing to dive deeper into this matter can check out this review we delivered back in the day).
As for the rest of the 2 Series family, which will include the Active Tourer and the larger Gran Tourer seven-seater, these will continue to be underpinned by the UKL FWD-based platform.
For the new 1 Series, the loss of its RWD underpinnings has brough an extra downside in terms of performance. You see, the said UKL platform means the hatch can no longer be fitted with BMW's famous straight-six, since this requires a longitudinal layout, whereas the new architecture uses a transverse layout. And while a turbo-four or a turbo-three might pack sweet output numbers these days, sunch enginen can't offer the character of an inline-six.
Sure, the German automotive producer will still offer xDrive versions of these cars. However, you shouldn't expect these to be as tail-happy as the all-paw BMWs based on RWD architectures.
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