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In Reply to: Re: Pricing, group purchase, wait list posted by Bruce on January 09, 2000 at 17:59:32:
: Alright. I'll bite. And I'll confess brain lock, stupidity and the fact that I may have had my glass of wine tonight. Forgive the insolence, because I have the utmost respect for all of you who have thought about this much more than I and apparently with more info. However, I have spent a previous life on a production line TOTALLY unrelated to the auto business so, again, I may be shooting blanks.
I believe that there are higher priority business issues that enter into setting the price of new car beyond the uniqueness of component parts alone. It's the usual boring stuff, really. On the other hand, I am still thinking of the '01/M3 as a production car--not a onesy track rod. Will it not in fact be based on a very well-established engine with the basic factory tools already nailed? Should we really expect this thing will be such a big deviation from the Evo that the engine ALONE (or even adding a few springs/sway bars) will bump the price of a comparably-equipped 328 Ci $8K or more? I am thinking that the cost of the E46/M might even be cheaper minus the engine. An awful lot of E46 Ci's are makin their way to our shores already, no? At the point of assembly a different engine drop and suspension parts should not break the bank at all. Isn't it just a matter of scheduling on a particular assembly line a set number of units at a particular time? This should not even require the complexity of planning or cost that continuation of the E36 M required once the E46 took over. The labor/production cost of choosing a "BMW Individual" paint color might be greater ($1550) from the point of view of the factory than a different engine and suspension.
So let me delude myself for a while longer until I get the shock of seeing an MSRP of $50K...
Perhaps Bruce is trying to tell me that the new engine is ENTIRELY new, not an Evo-II?
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