BMW Planning Front-Wheel-Drive A1 Rival

Posted on 11 March 2010 by Scott Hayes

Tentatively dubbed the 0-Series at this stage, BMW Chairman, Norbert Reithofe, has confirmed this week that a rival to the Audi A1 is in the works.

Speaking with British magazine Autocar, Mr Reithofe said that the German carmaker is planning to grow the small car offerings of both BMW and MINI, with front-wheel-drive being the likely layout. “We will be extending the BMW and Mini brands into the small car segment with new models and variants,” Reithofer told Autocar. “For these new vehicles, we are developing a common architecture for both front and four-wheel drive.”

With an all-new MINI Cooper expected to arrive in 2014, the new models would likely utilise the same front-wheel-drive layout. Mr Reithofer said that the new models will be entirely separate from BMW’s upcoming Mega City electric vehicles, with internal studies at BMW showing growing demand for ‘premium vehicles’ (such as the Audi A1) in the small car market.

The Chairman added that while the next-generation 1 Series is not guaranteed to be rear-wheel-drive, the new platform being engineered to accommodate a four-wheel-drive layout means that BMW’s traditional rear-driven recipe may live on in the new 1 Series.

Adapted from TheMotorReport

1 Comments For This Post

  1. Biffy Says:
    March 11th, 2010 at 11:00 am

    Looks like identical Audi A1 copy, just changed front and rear lights.

Leave a Reply

Follow SACarFan on Twitter

Professional Car Photography

.
Victoria van Violence and the Gold Fink Hot Rod 3 (2012)
giulietta

See all photos

The Visitor, (defined as: each person who establishes a connection for access to and use of SACarFan.co.za), expressly agrees that use of SACarFan.co.za is at Visitor's sole risk. Neither SACarFan.co.za, its affiliates nor any of their respective employees, agents, third party content providers or licensors, warrant that SACarFan.co.za will be uninterrupted or error free; nor do they make any warranty as to the results that may be obtained from use of SACarFan.co.za, or as to the accuracy, reliability or content of any information, service, or merchandise provided through SACarFan.co.za. From time-to-time, the activities shown on SACarFan.co.za may be of a dangerous nature. SACarFan.co.za does not endorse the activities shown and described on this site nor does it encourage Visitor's to engage in such activities. Visitor's who choose to do so, are doing so entirely at their own risk and hereby indemnify SACarFan.co.za of any and all liability, claims demands, actions or causes of action against SACarFan.co.za, its developers and any related entities.