Quote:
Originally Posted by RingMeister01
Yes. Independent meaning they are not owned by a huge corporate umbrella like say Volkswagen or Fiat. BMW are actually a small corporation, which is amazing considering their market possition and overall value of the company (2x that of Mercedes). VW can build the Bugatti because they have the money to throw away for its development and production. BMW don't have those resources.
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Ah, well, let's see, I remember something called the Z8, that was a halo car for BMW. The original E30 M3, halo car, almost built the BMW brand post 1987. The 850 comes to mind also. How about the M6 cabrio? Or let's go even farther back to the Z1, the plastic fantastic car that came out 7 years after the Fiero.
Let's go the other way, the 7 underpins the Rolls Royce. The upcoming 1-series will platform-share with Mini. The X-series are all cross-overs from the sedans. Sure VW is a huge corporation and builds 49 cars off the MQB platform. BMW does it just the same conceptually (as all manufacturers do), not as drastic, only on a smaller scale.
Case in point, regarding the Z2:
"We are considering a car in the spirit of the original Z3,” a BMW official revealed to Autocar. “It is of similar size to the Z3 but is planned
to use the front-wheel-drive platform to keep costs down and achieve a margin level that ensures it is sustainable at comparatively low production volumes."