{"id":439579,"date":"2010-03-17T16:29:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-17T20:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/2010\/03\/17\/bmw-confirms-plans-for-front-drive-models\/"},"modified":"2010-03-17T16:29:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-17T20:29:00","slug":"bmw-confirms-plans-for-front-wheel-drive-models","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/439579","title":{"rendered":"BMW confirms plans for front-wheel-drive models"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Filed under: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/category\/sports\/\" rel=\"tag\">Performance<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/category\/bmw\/\" rel=\"tag\">BMW<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/category\/luxury\/\" rel=\"tag\">Luxury<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" hspace=\"0\" border=\"1\" vspace=\"4\" src=\"http:\/\/www.blogcdn.com\/www.autoblog.com\/media\/2010\/03\/bmw-reithofer-vision.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>If there&#8217;s one thing that&#8217;s certain in this crazy world, it&#8217;s that Ultimate Driving Machines are driven by their rear wheels. Sure, there&#8217;s an occasional all-wheel-drive model thrown in for good measure, but even those revert to the tried-and-true RWD when extra traction from the front two contact patches isn&#8217;t deemed necessary or desirable. Well, alert the media (oh, wait&#8230;): <a href=\"http:\/\/autoblog.com\/make\/bmw\">BMW<\/a> has confirmed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/2010\/03\/09\/report-bmw-working-on-new-fwd-model-below-1-series\/\">the rumors<\/a> that it will build front-wheel-drive automobiles.<\/p>\n<p>At the Annual Accounts Press Conference for 2010, Dr. Norbert Reithofer, Chairman of the Board of Management of BMW, had this to say:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<div><em>[The small car] segment is expected to grow further. And we will take advantage of this opportunity. We are exploring the possibility of developing a joint architecture for the front and four-wheel drive systems of these cars. In other words: There will be front-wheel drive BMWs in the smaller vehicle classes in the future.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Heresy, BMW fans? We wouldn&#8217;t worry too much &#8211; there seems little chance that BMW will make a wholesale switch from powering the rear wheels to the fronts, especially for its mainstream models like the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/model\/3+series\">3 Series<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/model\/5+series\">5 Series<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/model\/7+series\">7 Series<\/a> &#8211; but the addition of a FWD chassis will make it easier for the automaker to share platforms with other companies and to &#8220;reduce [its] fleet&#8217;s carbon-emissions worldwide by at least another 25 percent between 2008 and 2020.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In fact, take it from Reithofer himself:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<div><em>BMW will continue to be a sport-inspired brand. We at the BMW Group continue to deliver maximum performance, tackle new challenges and sharpen our competitive edge.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Click past the break for the complete text of Reithofer&#8217;s speach.<\/p>\n<p>[Source: BMW]<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/2010\/03\/17\/bmw-confirms-plans-for-front-drive-models\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Continue reading <em>BMW confirms plans for front-wheel-drive models<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/2010\/03\/17\/bmw-confirms-plans-for-front-drive-models\/\">BMW confirms plans for front-wheel-drive models<\/a> originally appeared on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\">Autoblog<\/a> on Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:29:00 EST.  Please see our <a href=\"http:\/\/www.weblogsinc.com\/feed-terms\/\">terms for use of feeds<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h6 style=\"clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;\"><\/h6>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/2010\/03\/17\/bmw-confirms-plans-for-front-drive-models\/\" rel=\"bookmark\" title=\"Permanent link to this entry\">Permalink<\/a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/forward\/19403814\/\" title=\"Send this entry to a friend via email\">Email this<\/a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/2010\/03\/17\/bmw-confirms-plans-for-front-drive-models\/#comments\" title=\"View reader comments on this entry\">Comments<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Filed under: Performance, BMW, Luxury If there&#8217;s one thing that&#8217;s certain in this crazy world, it&#8217;s that Ultimate Driving Machines are driven by their rear wheels. Sure, there&#8217;s an occasional all-wheel-drive model thrown in for good measure, but even those revert to the tried-and-true RWD when extra traction from the front two contact patches isn&#8217;t [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-439579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/78"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439579\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}