BMW showed its ‘beast’, the M3 Concept based on the Neue Klasse platform, for the first time at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Now, BMW showed it for the first time in the U.S. at the Monterey Car Week, with a lot more pics and details.
Officially, the M Concept Neue Klasse aims to show a future vision of what is possible for BMW’s M Division, design-wise and technically. The new photos show the concept from many perspectives.
Outside
Visually, the nose differs significantly from the production i3. The (yellow) lights have a different design, the air intakes have moved to the middle and are much bigger, the side air intakes have been replaced by additional lighting, and the car also has a shark nose. The side wheel arches are much more impressive.
At the rear, there is a ducktail, and we see the same double additional lights from the front repeated in the side skirts instead of the reflectors of the normal i3. The underbody is completely different, with huge air ducts hinting at a diffuser effect.
Inside
Inside, the drive mode switch is completely different from the i3, and the central console has also changed. The Panoramic Vision display and central touchscreen remain in their original form. The steering wheel has large rocker switches to shift up and down the simulated gears.
Red-colored switches give the opportunity to switch between different M modes. The race buckets are equipped with real racing harnesses, and the two emergency seats in the back are for occasional passenger transport only.
The real M3
Rumor has it that the production car will be named M3, not iM3 nor i3M. Most probably because a new ICE version of an M3 can’t possibly match the performance of this electric ‘beast’. The total power delivered by the four electromotors with torque vectoring hasn’t been released yet, but it will probably be around 735 kW/1,000 hp or more.
The battery will be similar in size to the i3’s (109 kWh), but it won’t be the same. For the M3, BMW developed a special version with the same cylindrical 4695 battery cells, but surrounded by cooling on all sides.
Whether all of that will appear in the production version is still unclear, and we don’t yet know when the new electric M3 will launch, but we can be sure we’ll have the opportunity to purchase one in 2027. One can also expect that the price tag won’t be restrained, either.
