Quote:
Originally Posted by Adem1534
Thank you.
To me, it's clear as day, and I understand what others are saying, but to put it bluntly I think they're completely wrong.
A company does not re-design a car's roofline like that for nothing.
IT IS NOT A COINCIDENCE that the lower roofline is being tested with 4 (YES, FOUR) separate design choices that everyone was speculating about the M2.
Carbon Fiber roof.
Double Bubble roof.
Recaro Sport seats.
Carbon Fiber hood.
And now we see a suspicious M235i testing with these things equipped, and everyone is screaming Toyota/BMW sports car! Ridiculous.
From an engineers perspective. That car, with that well exectuted roof line, is NOT a test mule for a different car. Everything flows specifically with the 2 series body.
This is for the M2. Carbon fiber parts all over a suspicious 2 series and here we are, listening to people yell about how it's not an M2 because of the lowered roof line.
Ugh. Enough ranting for the day.
|
Oh jeez, are you kidding me?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Racer20
1. We have seen M2 development vehicles, and they are not this.
2. It's too late in the development cycle for these changes to be made to the M2. The final prototypes have been on the road for months now with the production body work. The car launches next fall, that means the car will basically be production ready by spring at the latest. If this were the M2, we would have seen this car a year ago, and the other prototypes would already have this body work.
3. It's also much shorter than an M235i. This, along with the chopped roof, would basically force a completely new vehicle in order to fit passengers properly.
4. It doesn't have wide fenders or other M body work. If they were going to do all the body work for the roof and wheelbase, they would have included all the M body work.
5. Race car, CSL, GTS versions would not be developed using the stock M235i body work at this point. They would either be using the same M2 mules as the other ones we've seen or they would wait for the production car to launch and modify one of those.
6. Early chassis mules almost always have aftermarket Recaro seats along with a cage and harnesses for safety reasons. Several early M3/M4 prototypes had them as well.
I work in the auto industry. I'm telling you there is no chance that this is an M2 mule.
|
Please listen to this guy. He works in the industry. I do not, but I have very good friends that do (for the manufacturers, not dealers). You simply cannot change the body in white on a car and up and sell it. You have to crash it. Racer20 may be able to confirm for me, but last I checked, it costs between $3M and $5M to certify a car for crash test purposes. You're not going to do that for a car that you're going to sell in the tiny numbers that the M2 is going to sell for (relatively speaking).
You may be an engineer, and I am as well, but just because the car has some awesome panel gaps does not mean it's production ready. Look at any history of new models. Any time a new platform is launched, virtually 100% of the time it shows up as a mule that looks like a mutant version of a current production car. Then, once it's closer to production, and they actually have started making the true production body in white, then it gets camouflage. Usually the "mule" version is a few years out, maybe 3, certainly not a model that's coming out next year. The production times for the tooling, etc., are just too long for that.
It's a mule for something completely different.