BMW 1-Series to become BMW 2-Series?

BMW 1-Series - could get promoted to BMW 2-Series

BMW has trademarked a series of 2-Series designations in the States, leading to speculation we may see the 1-Series promoted to 2-Series and a FWD 1-Series instead.

That sounds a daft headline, I know. How can the BMW 1-Series become the BMW 2-Series? What’s the point? What’s the logic?

We know that BMW are planning on bringing a FWD, Fiesta-size car to the market; they’ve made no secret of the fact despite the concerns it may in some way dilute the BMW brand. And we may have thought that too – after all, RWD is a big BMW selling point – until we saw research which said that 80% of BMW 1-Series owners thought their car was FWD anyway.

Which does rather suggest that only we sad petrolheads really care that much whether a car is front wheel drive or rear wheel drive. That makes it a no-brainer for BMW as the world downsizes its cars to cope with a recession and taxation based on CO2 emissions.

But what to call a smaller, front wheel drive BMW? Frankly, we referred to it as the BMW 0-Series when we first learned that BMW were planning a model below the current 1-Series. But really, that’s a non-starter if for no other reason than the connotations that a 0-Series is a nonentity.

So the discovery by C&D in the US that BMW has just trademarked the monikers 228, 230 and 235 does point towards taking the current 1-Series upmarket and calling it the BMW 2-Series when it gets replaced, and using the 1-Series moniker for the smaller, FWD range of BMWs. It would also mean that instead of agonising over the BMW M1 badge we could happily have a BMW M2.

Even if it does sound like a motorway in Kent.