BMW Ventures Down New Road With Front-Drive 2-Series

MIRAMAS, France – The word in March 2004 from BMW’s proving ground here in the south of France was definitive: Its rear-wheel-drive 1-Series prototypes were crucial to BMW’s Golf-fighting small car retaining Munich’s traditional driving character.

“We wanted a pure BMW,” 1-Series project leader Gerd Schuster told WardsAuto. “A sports package that fits one class below the 3-Series and offers real driving pleasure. We wanted  high-quality steering and precise handling in a car that does not under- or oversteer.”

Under R&D chief Bukhardt Goeschel, BMW simultaneously developed the E8 1-Series and the ’05 E90 3-Series essentially with the same architecture and component sets, with the aim of building 600,000 cars a year.

Nearly 10 years after the 1-Series’s debut, under very different management, the pressure of meeting rigorous proposed fuel-economy standards and the need to build significantly more cars on the new UKL1 Mini platform, BMW has shifted priorities.

Unveiled at this month’s Geneva auto show, the 2-Series Active Tourer arrives five years after the automaker committed to front-wheel drive. That means Munich has abandoned its traditional and total commitment to rear- and all-wheel drive, and to its brand-defining 50/50 weight distribution.

Rear-drive models remain at BMW’s core, but the Active Tourer multipurpose vehicle represents a huge brand gamble.

By engineering the UKL1 in three wheelbase lengths, BMW plans a raft of front-wheel-drive models, including 7-seat and all-wheel-drive versions of the 2-Series Tourer. Up to 12 different models are proposed, including a potential roadster and an electric version, though the automaker has yet to green-light them all.

Combined with Mini production, BMW hopes to build almost 1 million front-drive cars a year, enough to raise total output to more than 2 million and ensure long-term independence. Current output of 300,000 front-drive Minis a year is not profitable enough, and adding UKL1-based products will improve economies of scale, the automaker says.

Even as late as March 2012, BMW Australia’s advertising still was asking, “Ever Seen a Front Drive F1 car?”

Laying out the case for its venerable powertrain technology, the BMW ad goes on to say: “Every BMW 3-Series is rear-wheel drive. The reason for this comes down to simple physics: when under power, front wheels can spin, and with loss of traction comes loss of steering. Then there’s the added factor of torque steer – the effect of excess loss of excess power adversely affecting steering control.

“All in all, these factors result in less grip, less agility and less precision.

“Certainly, front drives are cheaper to make, but as you can see, this comes at a price. And when you’re designing the Ultimate Driving Machine, shortcuts and compromises are two things best left behind.”

Now, BMW’s front-drive gambit is being driven not only by fuel-economy requirements but also by a shifting market.

Klaus Frohlich, BMW senior vice president-product line, small and midsize series (1- to 5-Series) points out: “The Tourer appeals to a segment of people who don’t buy BMWs. The packaging doesn’t work with rear drive.”

BMW claims research revealed 80% of 1-Series buyers did not know if their car was front- or rear-wheel drive. Of those who knew it was rear-drive, most drove 1-Series Coupes.

But will the Active Tourer drive like a BMW?

“Good steering starts with the rear axle,” Frohlich tells the Australian magazine Wheels. “Some of our competitors use a torsion-beam rear axle. Our car has a multi-link, so the steering is precise and direct and with no torque steer. As an engineer, how a car feels is important to me.”

Rear-Drive 1-Series to Stick Around

BMW’s famed 50/50 weight distribution isn’t restricted to its front-engine/rear-drive cars. Siegfried Muller, project leader for the Active Tourer, says the 218d version achieves a 50.5/49.5 front-to- rear distribution – staggering for a front-drive car. That means “You can feel BMW’s expected driving character, though pure fun is not the aim.

“Customer preferences have changed the usage of cars,” notes Muller, who previously led the new X5 development team. “Three or four years ago we were not sure if the change to front-wheel drive made real sense. But customers’ ideas changed so fast that now we believe it’s the perfect car for 2014.”

Despite the advent of front drive, BMW has no plans to eliminate the existing rear-drive 1- and 2-Series models. “Rear-drive 1-Series models, like the 5-door, will run for their full life cycle until 2018,” says Frohlich, contending the front- and rear-drive models happily will overlap.

“Given a 7-year lifecycle, we have three to four years to decide” whether to develop a next generation of rear-drive 1-Series models, he says.

Assigning the Active Tourer monicker to the 2-Series means BMW has discarded its new naming convention just a year after it was announced. Under this system, even numbers were reserved for coupes and convertibles, odd numbers for mainstream sedans and wagons and, now, Grand Turismo models.

The confusion comes because, Frohlich says, “There are only one to nine numbers and we have 30 different car models. We tried all the letters and the only one that is still free is Y. It’s not easy; we forced Mercedes-Benz to stop calling the ML the M-Class, because we already had M. Toyota now has Ti.

“Maybe we need to use names.”

Ultimately, it all comes down to success in the showroom. Today, the 1-, 2- and 3-Series models share major components such as the firewall, heating, steering systems, drivetrains and suspension parts that are crucial to BMW achieving financial economies of scale. Tomorrow? BMW’s new 3- and 4-cyl. engines are designed so they easily can be mounted both longitudinally and transversely.

The new 2-Series Tourer advances non-traditional BMW values such as space efficiency and practicality.

“A roomy, functional BMW needs front-wheel drive,” claims Frohlich. “And that means going into a large segment and not a niche. The Mini buyer is completely different (from) the BMW buyer.

“We are on our way to 2 million (unit sales a year) and that’s okay, but we don’t want to risk the brand or our exclusivity,” the increasingly high-profile engineer adds. “People believe we are an engineering company, but we are also the best brand company in the automobile field. Our steps don’t happen by chance.”

BMW’s first front-drive venture came in 1994 with the purchase of Rover, a move also meant to expand its range to off-road vehicles. For six years BMW struggled to make Rover work, ultimately failing, though the automaker did manage to make a hit of the revival of Mini.

The Rover 75, BMW’s first front-drive model, never had a chance. Frohlich blames the Rover brand’s reputation for the disappointing result: “If you put a bad brand on a good car it doesn’t help.”

The 2-Series Tourer, built on a 105-in. (2,670-mm) wheelbase, 0.8 in. (20 mm) shy of the 1-Series, is 0.7 in. (17 mm) longer at 171 ins. (4,342 mm) but, crucially, at 61.7 ins. (1,555 mm) the tall mini-MPV is 5.3 ins. (135 mm) higher. With a trunk capacity of 16.5-53.3 cu.-ft. (468-1,510 L), it offers far more load space than the 1-Series hatchback.

BMW avoids any mention of weight distribution in its initial press material, but still touts the new model’s “optimum driving dynamics and wonderfully precise steering feedback.”

M Sport suspension and 18-in. M alloys are Tourer options, but unsurprisingly there are no plans for a genuine M variant.

Does it really drive like a BMW? Munich is spreading its range so wide it’s risking being perceived as an everyman’s automaker. But it is betting there now are other, more important, priorities than being the Ultimate Driving Machine.

Frohlich also says the BMW and Toyota joint-venture sports car is far from production.

“There is no defined co-operation on a sports car with Toyota. We are evaluating everything, but sports-car sales are not growing and it is a challenge to make it profitable. At the moment it is just two groups of engineers staring at each other across a table.

“A sports car is a positioning tool; it has to be the essence of BMW. At the moment it is an exercise in finding a technical solution, because it has to be both a Toyota and a BMW, and they must differentiate a lot. We are not under pressure. We will take a long time to make the decisions and then act quickly.”