BMW is hitting the reset button on how it designs cars. It won’t be long before we’ll get our first official look at the fresh design language. Arriving later this year, the second-generation iX3 will usher in the modern Neue Klasse era. After that, the i3 sedan will hit the market in 2026. But the Bavarians have clarified that the fresh look won’t be exclusive to electric cars. It means that future gas cars will also embrace the NK styling.
One of the first models with combustion engines to adopt the Neue Klasse theme will be the eighth-generation 3 Series. Codenamed “G50,” the sport sedan has already been spotted as a disguised prototype. Sure enough, it looked a lot like the fully electric i3. The ICE model had a longer nose to fit a gas/diesel engine, but the rest looked strikingly similar. Our exclusive rendering attempts to digitally peel off the camouflage.
We didn’t need a crystal ball to see into the future of BMW’s best-selling car. The 2023 Vision Neue Klasse concept gave us an official preview of the reinvented 3er. It’s a vast departure from the current “G20,” and like with every generation, people will have good and bad things to say. Our speculative rendered focuses on the M350, which will be the M Performance model. It’ll replace today’s M340i, and we have it on good authority the M340d won’t receive a successor.
We’re still not entirely convinced that M Performance cars deserve a quad exhaust system. BMW is now putting four tips even on the M135 and M235, so the not-quite M3 will undoubtedly have them. A full-fat M3 “G84” will follow shortly in the life cycle. BMW will keep the inline-six engines for both hot derivatives. However, the M division could simplify the M3 lineup by selling the car exclusively with an automatic transmission and xDrive.
Before the next 3 Series arrives in 2027 and the M3 in 2028, BMW will mark 50 years of the 3 Series this year at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este in the second half of May.
