I’m going to put on my curmudgeon hat, which is never far from my head, to discuss the new BMW 2 series Gran Tourer. I watched the two minute video BMW had produced, with its faddish pop music soundtrack, European streets, and incongruous American suburban tree-house.
Ack, bland cheese, methinks – make that American cheese (cheese in name only). I was truly underwhelmed. Has BMW gone from ‘Freude am Fahren’ to ‘Freude am Schleppen’? Yes, other luxury brands tout front wheel drive people mover offerings. And BMW has a capable FWD platform. So maybe they can eek out a niche offering that is attractive to suburbanites of megacities (with a requisite 2.5 children and an ‘active’ lifestyle).
Does it dilute the brand? That depends on if it’s been decontented. A neighbor has a Mercedes-Benz CLA and when I had a chance to take a close look at it I noticed some interesting features, like a ‘prop rod’ to hold the hood up. Hmmm, cheap for a Mercedes – and what else have they cut corners on . . . it didn’t scream luxury to me, but it did have that three-pointed star on it. The question about the 2 GT is will it have more BMW in it than a handful of roundels.
Fortunately I can always fall back on the following analogy; the steak (fillet) in BMW’s lineup are the 3, 4, 5 plus X3, X5 models, the bacon wrapping that is M and all the rest are the blue cheese crumbles in the demi glace. Sorry that I cannot think of a vegan equivalent to that analogy, but that’s due to the curmudgeon’s hat being firmly in place.
