If would be tough to argue against any claim that the BMW 2 Series Coupe is one of the best, if not the best car BMW has made in a while. All its trims are powerful and fun, it’s rear- or all-wheel drive, and it has the dynamics and style of a classic BMW. It’s too bad BMW might ruin the upcoming new four-door model with front-wheel drive, then.
Thanks to a slew of new spy photographs taken in Europe, which you can eye-ball yourself over at Autoblog and Carscoops, it would appear that there’s nothing linking the rear wheels on the upcoming 2 Series Gran Coupe with the powerplant up front, essentially guaranteeing that the car sits on a front-wheel drive platform. No axle, no differential, no joy.
If true the move from RWD is a total disconnect from the dynamic of the existing 2 Series Coupe, though it’s not so far from that weird 2 Series Active Tourer they get in Europe and other markets. Many of these newer FWD Bimmers share drivetrains and engines from BMW’s Mini division.
But the move maybe isn’t surprising from a business perspective. The 1 Series hatchback is reportedly going FWD next too. And a front-wheel drive 2 Series sedan has been rumored before.
It’s possible that the more expensive trims of the Gran Coupe could come with AWD, though, and with BMW’s history of extremely rear-biased AWD cars, that could be promising enough to stop me from losing all faith in this new 2 variant.
Strangely, European publication Autocar has doubled down on its claims that a M2 Gran Coupe is also already in the works, which would come with a six-cylinder engine on a rear-wheel drive platform, along with the rest of the Gran Coupe range as well as the next-generation 2 Series Coupe. That’s the silver lining in all this, apparently—the Coupe is expected to stay RWD.
The good, or maybe bad news, is that all of this should clear up by the end of the year. Too bad it’s only early January.