Recently BMW announced that they have plans to start producing front-wheel drive BMW’s. To further support BMW’s claim and reasoning to make front-wheel drive vehicles, CEO Norbert Reithofer revealed that 80 percent of BMW 1-Series drivers believed that they were driving a front-wheel drive car. If you are a car nut then you already know that the BMW 1-Series is in fact a rear wheel drive vehicle.
BMW’s only front-wheel drive platform is currently used in MINI vehicles. BMW has decided that they will build a front-wheel drive platform for an entry-level BMW to compete directly against the Audi A1 and plan to sell 1 million front-wheel drive BMW’s by year 2015.
The results of the 1-Series survey were “quite a surprise” said Reithofer. BMW obviously sees this as good news in their endeavor to produce front-wheel drive vehicles for the first time ever possibly going against the brand’s devotion in making rear-wheel drive performance focused vehicles. The new front-wheel drive architecture will be shared in MINI vehicles building up to a combined 20 model variants for both BMW and MINI.
[source: autonews]
