babypuppi: [15] Bmw 4 On This Year Picture

Here are a few things about the Detroit auto show–bound BMW 4-series coupe concept that are urgent but not actually very important:

1. It’s not the “BMW 4-series coupe concept.” It’s the “BMW Concept 4-series Coupe.” This makes sense to BMW and to no one else. Let’s move on.

2. This is no longer a 3-series coupe, as you’ll have noticed from the above headline and nearly every sentence so far in this story. It’s a 4-series because, as BMW says, the numeral change is “a sign of greater exclusivity.” This also makes sense to BMW. But this is the same company that sells a car called the Z4 sDrive35is. Just be happy this coupe, and the convertible to follow, aren’t called the 3-series Gran Turismo because that really makes no sense and will be ugly. But we digress . . .

3. And this vehicle, which has concept right there in the name, is no concept at all, not even by the diminished standards of the descriptor. At least when Honda unveils a production car and calls it a concept, which it does frequently, it chops off the side mirrors and puts some sweet, backward-facing lipstick-shaped cameras in their place.

So there. We feel better now. Anyway, here is the all-but-totally-production-ready 4-series coupe that will go on sale next year. Low and wide and long, the 4-series follows in the stretched-out footprint of its kin, the 640i Gran Coupe. It rides on a 110.6-inch wheelbase, up nearly two inches from that of the outgoing 3-series coupe. The 4-series also has bulked-up by almost two inches in width. At 182.7 inches, the 4-series is longer than the model it replaces and its roof is about half an inch lower. This gives the 4-series concept a low, menacing stance.

View PhotosMICHAEL SIMARI, THE MANUFACTURER

That lowness also might be due to what we’re guessing are deeper-than-stock front and rear fascias. The concept—and surely the production version—is more deliberately contoured than was the previous car, with all manner of swoops and swages. It is the current fashion to make a car’s bodywork look like metal skin stretched tight over bone and muscle. Straight panels are passé. The concept’s all-LED headlights and L-shaped taillights look something like stretched versions of those of the current 3-series sedan.

Also, the 4-series concept has something called, and we’re not making this up, an Air Breather. This, it turns out, is the vent behind each front wheel that is “aerodynamically effective” at affecting the aerodynamics in some way that’s way better than the adhesive-backed kind you’d buy at Pep Boys. BMW claims they extract air from the front wheel wells. The body is painted Liquid Silver Metallic and it’s trimmed out in satin-finish aluminum. The interior gets some fine-looking chestnut wood trim and leather seats, tanned in an environmentally friendly way and then trimmed with braided leather strips. The braided leather also finds its way to, of all places, the insides of the cup holders, which, well, that just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.

View PhotosMICHAEL SIMARI, THE MANUFACTURER

Mechanical specifications? Pfft. The only thing BMW is saying about the car is that it has unique 20-inch aluminum wheels, which the company jammed deep into the wells.

That said, we do know that the production 4-series will borrow the turbocharged engines from its sedan sibling, which means the 328i’s 240-horse four and the 335i’s 300-hp six. (Whether the production cars will be called 428i and 435i, or if they’ll adopt higher numbers for maximum “exclusivity,” isn’t yet clear.) Transmissions will include a six-speed manual and an eight-speed automatic. This car also will serve as the basis for the next-generation "M3 coupe", which we've learned will be called the M4. (The M3 name will live on for the sedan.) The production version of the basic coupe reaches dealers in the fall of 2013.

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