BMW says no more manuals, M cars capped at 600 hp Is the horsepower war over? I believe the new frontier is in materials such as carbon fiber and graphene.
They will quickly change their mind when everyone else offers cars with more power. They don't set the rules, market does......
who cares ? i was a loyal m3 buyer for decades.... they lost me with the 4 series 3 series swap a roo
Horsepower decrease (at least stock) won't be as bad if they keep on the weight saving program of the new M3/4. The bigger news is the possible deletion of a 3 pedal manual option. Acknowledging DCT is more efficient (and probably less costly for warranty claims as horsepower increases), it kind of undermines the "ultimate DRIVING machine" theme BMW has worked so hard to obtain, at least for the M division. But if Fiat, err, sorry, Dodge/Chrysler, keeps up at 700+ horsepower for 1/2 the price, and GM keeps putting out mid to high 600's, putting a cap on power will not help sales very much. Regards, Jerry
It would be cool if they built a factory engineered car like this http://youtu.be/bQY1yBv8nDg Looks like a hoot to drive.
in the 90's the Japanese as a whole made the same brilliant decision to limit their cars at 300 HP. Hence the NSX not being a supercar icon. Instead of just freakin fantastic ! Glad to see the world followed their dictates.
Why make an announcement? Bad publicity for enthusiasts. Just do it quietly if feel the need. Stupid bmw
Well I would rather they start making cars lighter and more nimble. 600hp 2 ton + elephants do not really impress me or make say "gotta have one of those" at this point. I'd rather have a car that I don't need to bury my right foot in to enjoy it.
I've been thinking a lot lately that we've hit a horsepower wall of sorts. When cars went up in slow increments of horsepower like the 308 to 328 (30-40 hp) every little bit helped and was needed..It sold cars too. I can remember waiting all year to visit a friend who had a Celica GTS with a whopping 135 hp when my regular Celica had only 115. Couldn't imagine how awesome that extra 20hp would be..lol. Now, with cars hitting 600-700 hp it's not useable, or, I'd argue gonna move cars much longer. My 335i with modest upgrades and tunes already struggles to hook up even with traction control. What would another 100 hp do? Like a boat with it's prop trimmed too high it's mostly slippage. Tires and traction control wizardry can only do so much to keep the power trimmed and the back end hooked up. So why pay more to boost HP only to pay even more to have it limited in an effort to keep traction? Maybe BMW is thinking the same thing. Thinking that they've gotta focus on other areas of performance to sell cars. ? BTW: with a Cobb or Dinan tune, bigger turbos & downpipes, FMIC and a meth kit you can get 600 hp out of your 335i. Can be done for less then 5k. All can be bolted on or plugged on in a day.
I would take a car with half the power if it came with half the weight...weight is so much more important imo.
"I would take a car with half the power if it came with half the weight." I traded my M3 for a FR-S (Toyota 86).
