http://news.ft.com/cms/s/df22a930-6b51-11d9-9357-00000e2511c8.html
Excerpts below:
Helmut Panke likes peeling onions. It is the BMW chairman's favoured way of illustrating the core values of one of the world's best-known carmakers.
Strip away the outer layers, he says, and the core is to be found not in the landmark cylindrical towers of BMW's headquarters in Munich, but in a cluster of modest buildings in Garching, a small town on the city's outskirts. Together they make up BMW's "M" division.
The division's staff of 500 will build 25,000 cars in 2005 - little more than 2 per cent of BMW's expected total 2004 output of 1.2m. But they are the cars, says Mr Panke, that justify more than any others in its range of models the company's self-proclaimed status as the maker of "ultimate driving machines".
...
Almost every car in BMW's range, except for sports-utility vehicles and the largest 7-Series, is expected to have an M version, including the recently launched 1-Series small hatchback. Kirby sez: Where's my ///M Roadster?!?!?!
...
Critics of the concept of ultra-high performance machines suggest that BMW and its German arch-rival DaimlerChrysler have become locked irrationally in a horsepower race embracing also AMG, DaimlerChrysler's in-house performance-tuning division.
Yet Mr Gossmeier is entirely unapologetic about soaring power outputs. If that is what customers want, BMW will provide it, he stresses.
Moreover, in spite of the developed world's car markets being close to saturation, M division executives are increasingly preoccupied with a strategy for growth.
...
By the end of this decade, Mr Richter predicts, the market will have doubled to 100,000 units. M executives make clear their determination to retain a similar share - even if it means substantial new investment at Garching, or 1,000 horsepower.
Excerpts below:
Helmut Panke likes peeling onions. It is the BMW chairman's favoured way of illustrating the core values of one of the world's best-known carmakers.
Strip away the outer layers, he says, and the core is to be found not in the landmark cylindrical towers of BMW's headquarters in Munich, but in a cluster of modest buildings in Garching, a small town on the city's outskirts. Together they make up BMW's "M" division.
The division's staff of 500 will build 25,000 cars in 2005 - little more than 2 per cent of BMW's expected total 2004 output of 1.2m. But they are the cars, says Mr Panke, that justify more than any others in its range of models the company's self-proclaimed status as the maker of "ultimate driving machines".
...
Almost every car in BMW's range, except for sports-utility vehicles and the largest 7-Series, is expected to have an M version, including the recently launched 1-Series small hatchback. Kirby sez: Where's my ///M Roadster?!?!?!
...
Critics of the concept of ultra-high performance machines suggest that BMW and its German arch-rival DaimlerChrysler have become locked irrationally in a horsepower race embracing also AMG, DaimlerChrysler's in-house performance-tuning division.
Yet Mr Gossmeier is entirely unapologetic about soaring power outputs. If that is what customers want, BMW will provide it, he stresses.
Moreover, in spite of the developed world's car markets being close to saturation, M division executives are increasingly preoccupied with a strategy for growth.
...
By the end of this decade, Mr Richter predicts, the market will have doubled to 100,000 units. M executives make clear their determination to retain a similar share - even if it means substantial new investment at Garching, or 1,000 horsepower.
