Article Summary
- The X3 M50 is BMW M’s best-selling model for the first half of the year, per M CEO Frank van Meel.
- Its rise is partly circumstantial: the X3M, X4M, and both M40i variants are currently absent from the lineup.
- Van Meel says the current X3 has also genuinely improved, with a stiffer chassis and more power making it a “Performance Plus” vehicle.
While BMW M’s headline news out of Goodwood this year centered on future products like the electric M3 and the X5 M60e, one of the more practical questions is much simpler: what’s actually selling right now? According to Frank van Meel, CEO of BMW M GmbH, the answer for the first half of the year is the X3 M50 — and the reasons behind it say a lot about how the current M lineup is shifting.
A Gap at the Top of the Range
Part of the X3 M50’s rise to the top spot could be circumstantial. BMW M has spent the first half of the year without several of the models that would normally compete with it for sales volume. The X3M and X4M — the full-fat, high-performance versions of BMW’s compact SUVs — aren’t currently in the lineup, and the M40i variants of both the X3 and X4 have also been discontinued.
That leaves a noticeable gap at the upper end of the X3/X4 range, and the M50 has stepped in to fill it. With the higher-performance alternatives absent, van Meel notes that the M50 is now “catching” a lot of demand that might otherwise have gone to those pricier, more track-focused variants.
More Than Just an Absence of Competition
Van Meel is careful to point out that the X3 M50’s strong showing isn’t purely a function of what’s missing from the lineup — the car itself has genuinely improved, according to Van Meel. BMW put significant engineering work into the current X3, particularly around body stiffness and added power, to the point where van Meel describes it as having become what he calls a “Performance Plus” vehicle in its own right.
That combination — meaningfully more power, a stiffer chassis, and no direct high-performance sibling to compete with internally — has translated into what van Meel describes as an “enormous” response worldwide. It’s not just the top seller among M’s current lineup; it’s the strongest performer BMW M has right now, period.
The i4 M50/M60: Still Strong, But Past Its Peak
The story is different at the other end of the range. The i4 M50/M60 — which produces over 600 horsepower — held the title of BMW M’s best-selling model for an extended stretch before the X3 M50 took over. That run made sense: the electric performance sedan represented a new segment for M and generated a lot of initial interest.
Now, according to van Meel, i4 M50/M60 volume is gradually declining — a natural consequence, in his telling, of the car moving towards the end of its production.
2027 will bring several new M products, starting with the ZA0 M3 electric, and followed by several M Performance models, like the iX3 M60 and iX5 M60, and others later in the year. So the expectations are that the sales of the M brand will continue to be strong in the year to come.
[Source: Bimmertoday]
