QOTD: With the 6 Series Coupe Dead, What Model Will BMW Kill Next?

Steph Willems
by Steph Willems

A little piece of resurrected BMW history has again faded to black, leaving the automotive landscape missing yet another traditional two-door coupe. BMW confirmed to Road & Track the 6 Series coupe ended production in February, apparently unbeknownst to everyone, ending a model that harkened back to the glorious 633CSi and 635CSi of the 1980s.

Fear not, 6 Series fans — the four-door Gran Coupe and Convertible live on, though likely not for long. The boys from Bavaria are readying a potential successor to the 6 Series in the form of a new 8 Series lineup, the first of which could appear in late 2018. A grand tourer-style coupe and convertible positioned above the 7 Series (but below Rolls-Royce) is BMW’s plan to counter an ultra-luxury offensive from rival Mercedes-Benz.

BMW doesn’t want to spread its models too thin. Understandable. BMW isn’t a charity — if it was, there’d be a 440i coupe in my driveway with a trunk full of 18-year-old Glenfiddich for which I paid not a cent. Unfortunately, as we’ve seen with the 6 Series Coupe, staying competitive and profitable sometimes means leading a doomed animal behind the barn. And these days the animal is never one with four doors or a voluminous cargo hold.

The tears fall like rain from motoring purists. Dread fills their hearts. More killing is on the way.

Sure, you can still buy from the remaining stock of 6 Series coupes, and BMW is only too happy to fling a 4 Series coupe your way. But for how long? BMW’s lineup has chartered a course towards contraction, not growth, and the automaker has stated as much.

As we all know, volume these days means vehicles your sister’s family might use for 90 percent of their driving needs — not coupes, and not convertibles. No, sedans (“four-door coupes”) and fastback SUVs (also “coupes”) might soon be the only vehicles with a coupe designation, fraudulent as it is.

Now’s the time to ask you, Best and Brightest, to look into your magic 8-ball.

Knowing the direction the industry is headed, what model will BMW cull next? On that note, what vehicle should BMW cull, if Munich answered to your beck and call?

[Image: BMW Group]

Steph Willems
Steph Willems

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  • Akatsuki Akatsuki on May 09, 2017

    The 6 was pretty unattractive - the 4 is frankly better looking and an M4 is really all the car you need if you are going to get a coupe. The reality is that BMW can't be ubiquitous and elite at the same time.

  • Lorenzo Lorenzo on May 09, 2017

    I hope BMW kills the CLA. I know it's a cheap Mercedes, and I'm not an elitist complaining about a lower class of Mercedes owners. I'm opposed to my fellow grubby middle classers putting on airs. If BMW can figure a way to induce MB to drop the CLA, I'm all for it.

  • Ted “the model is going to be almost 4 inches longer and 2 inches wider than its predecessor”Size matters. In this case there is 6” too much.
  • JMII Despite our past experience with Volvo my wife wants an EX30 badly. Small, upscale, minimalist EV hatch is basically her perfect vehicle.
  • Dukeisduke Is the Volvo EX30 even on sale yet? It was pulled from the NACTOY awards because they were having software problems with the vehicle.
  • Wjtinfwb If you've only got 5k to spend on transportation, I cannot imagine a worse way to spend it than on a GM orphan from Sweden that's 15 years old with 150k on the clock and limited plus expensive parts availability and dwindling techs who'd even want to work on it. Go find a similar vintage Camry or Accord with 150k miles or even a Ford or a Chevy, whatever. Hell, even an old Jaguar is less of a crapshoot than a Saab. At least you can still get parts.
  • Kwik_Shift Brands that were considered from China include BYD, Dayun, Great Wall Motors, Maxus, Nio, Omoda/Chery, Seres, XPeng, and Zeekr. KG Mobility from South Korea also made the list of candidates.That's a lot of car companies from there ready to head here.
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