√BMW Says It’s A Coincidence Electric M Performance Cars Use Old Gas Engine Names

In case you haven’t noticed, BMW has revived several nameplates that were used back in the day as codenames for gasoline engines. They’ve now been repurposed for electric M Performance models, namely the i4 M50 and iX M60, with the i7 M70 coming next year. However, it wasn’t a deliberate move to revive these designations for the electric era as the decision was made to establish a hierarchy within a model’s lineup.

Timo Resch, Vice President Customer, Brand, Sales at BMW M GmbH, explained in an interview with CarBuzz the reasoning behind the decision to use the M50, M60, and M70 suffixes: “It’s simply a logical way for customers to understand the hierarchy.” He went on to mention it’s a coincidence that these three codenames resurfaced but admits the engineers at home in Munich remember what those monikers originally stood for.

For a trip down memory lane, the M50 was a straight-six gasoline engine used throughout the 1990s in a variety of models with different displacements and high-performance S50 versions. The V8 started out with 148 horsepower in the 2.0-liter M50B20 and topped at 321 hp for the 3.2-liter S50B32.

The M60 had a shorter life span as it was only available from 1992 to 1996 in 3.0- and 4.0-liter configurations, maxing out at 314 hp in the ALPINA B10 4.0.

The M70 is unquestionably the most iconic of the trio as it powered the original 8 Series Coupe and the McLaren F1. This naturally aspirated V12 had just under 300 hp in its base form, rising to nearly 630 hp for the S70/3 configuration used by the LM and LMR endurance race cars and also the bonkers X5 LM Concept.

It will be interesting to see how BMW will name its full-fat M electric models when these will hit eventually the market. A sports car without a combustion engine was seemingly teased at the end of last month. Separately, rumor has it the M3 will be the first real M car to ditch the ICE.

Source: CarBuzz

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