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BMW will do what it has to sell more cars, enthusiast be damned. I think it will hurt them in the long run as the younger buyers who aspired to own M3s will feel abandoned. The 20 and 30 somethings who buy E30s and E36s will most likely stay with the mark (for now) and eventually go on to buy 5 and 7 series cars. But the heritage and "feel" has to be there.
If they move away from that they will lose those younger, aspirational buyers. The only new car I ever purchased was my '04 325i and I will never buy another new (post 2005) BMW because of the direction the company is moving. The performance of the new cars is fantastic but I hate everything else about them.
Buick has the opposite problem. The average age of a new Buick buyer is 70! They are desperate to turn this around because their potential market base will soon be dead. Nobody under the age 45 yearns to own a Buick. I think 20 years from now the average age of the BMW new car buyer will be much older than it is now. Closer to what Mercedes is now.
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Kurt
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