BMW’s Neue Klasse era officially kicks off next month with the debut of the iX3. Soon, every BMW will look like and have similar features to the automaker’s bold new electric SUV— including performance cars. Thankfully, though, most of them should retain their iconic names.
A post on the Bimmer post forum by the user in suggests that BMW won’t add the letter “i” to the front of its new performance models. Instead, the performance variant of the iX3, for example, will continue to be called the X3 M. M Performance models, though, will supposedly retain the letter “i” at the front of their nameplates; iX3 M60 xDrive.
A separate BMW insider confirmed to Engine that these reports are indeed true.
Production of those performance models won’t kick off until sometime in 2027, the post suggests. The standard iX3, meanwhile, debuts next month in Munich and goes on sale in the US early in 2026.
This coincides with reports from 2023, in which BMW M boss Frank van Meel said that the company would never use “i” and “M” letters together on the same vehicle. “We would never use an i on an M, even though it would be electric,” Van Meel told Top Gear. BMW did trademark the name “iM3” in 2023, but that nameplate will likely never see the light of day.
Of course, electric M cars aren’t the only performance vehicles on the horizon. BMW recently confirmed that the inline-six and V-8 engines in its M cars aren’t going anywhere. The company recently updated those engines to meet stricter Euro 7 regulations, and it promises to continue using them in M performance cars in the future.
