View Single Post
      08-16-2012, 11:26 AM   #64
KoenG
Lieutenant Colonel
Belgium
1418
Rep
1,519
Posts

Drives: i4 eDrive40 & Cupra Leon 300
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Europe

iTrader: (0)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sol01 View Post
and I hope the extra cost of R&D and manufacturing porocesses that has to go into this new FWD cars doesn't have a bigger impact on the mainstream products like 3er and 5er. they are a business and would have to keep their cost down ultimately to keep the shareholders happy. same thing happened with Mercdes a decade ago when they were trying to expand rapidly and as the results took their eyes off the ball and quality of their mainstream products deteriorated rapidly and eventually resulted in them losing fair bit of their customers and their status as number 1 premium car manufacturer. this FWD thingy is going to happen whether we like it or not but to me the purity of the brand is gone and I see it no different to Merc or Audi.
I assume that the cost will be limited seen they recuperate the Mini platform or not? I shared your fare when they started to invest massively into the SUVs line-up X1,3,5,6 which I don't like since seriously conflicting with the typical "dynamics" value of the brand. But I guess it didn't have too much of a negative impact on the 1/3/5/7-series either?
Appreciate 0