BMWs should not be affordable. After all, it is a luxury brand. However, the prices have increased in recent decades and the cars have been made unoptual for the younger amount. The cheapest model in the USA starts at 40,000 US dollars for the 2 Series Gran Coupé. At home in Germany, a series with a measly three -cylinder engine costs from € 33,600. The alternative? Purchase use like an E46 or an even older E30.
But what if Munich would tackle the lack of a cheap model instead of redirecting customers to Mini? Enter the BMW Outlaw, a hypothetical entry -level car that focuses on keeping the production costs on a minimum. It even has a very unofficial internal code name: E27. BMWblog Fan Hakan Attalan sent us his representations of a virtual concept that would ideally cost only € 20,000.
During his studies at Munich University, he worked on the thesis of his Bachelor in the BMW Research and Innovation Center (FIZ) in Munich. After spending time with professionals in the Advanced Design department, he recorded one or two things about how today’s cars are developed. The lessons learned in BMW helped him to draw the Outlaw with a focus on covering up the costs, wherever possible.
For example, both front and rear bumpers share an identical geometry, which makes it interchangeable. The headlights and taillights have exactly the same shape and size. In addition, the front kidneys also double as a exhaustless back. The doors are also identical and enabled by moving the hinges forward and turning 180 degrees on the passenger side. That is why the imaginary E27 has a suicide door on the right.
BMW itself looked at a similar approach in the 1990s, if not nearly as extreme. Do you remember the 3 Series compact (E36/5)? The E46/5 generation followed in the early 2000s. Although these cars had not achieved the commercial success that Bayern had hoped, BMW started the 1 series in 2004 a decade after pulling the plug on the compact. There was even a 1 -series sedan in some markets before BMW decided to concentrate exclusively on the 2 Series -Gran Coupé as a basic limousine.
Of course, Outlaw is a pipe dream, but still an interesting idea. In today’s regulatory auto industry, it is a real struggle to develop an affordable car and still earn money with it. The security, emission and noise regulations must be an infinite process that is further difficult by increasing the costs when securing raw materials and parts.
A back-to-basic BMW will never happen again. It is certain to say that the era of simple cars is really over.
[Photos & Information by Hakan Atasalan @hkn.atsln]
