Frank van Meel, the boss of BMW M, told reporters at the Festival at the Kialami Grand Prix circuit in South Africa that he does not want three- or four-cylinder engines in future M cars.
When the reporter asked if the inline six could ever be replaced by a powerful three-cylinder engine? Fran van Meeel replied:
"I hope that was just a rhetorical question because it's clear we're not going to do any three-cylinder engines," retorted van Meel. "We're not even going to do four-cylinder engines in high-performance cars. I know there are other companies [that] are doing that, but we're not going to do that."
The "other companies" van Meel refers to are clear. The 2024 Mercedes-AMG C63 S E Performance will have a 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder hybrid engine, instead of the 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 that its predecessor had. Another example is the three-cylinder engine in the Toyota GR Corolla and GR Yaris.
Though other engines are really impressive, it seems that BMW stills cares about the character of the straight-six and intends to maintain its longstanding love affair with the V8.
Source: Carbuzz
