Sales Of BMW’s M3 And M4 Through Five Generations And 35 Years

The BMW M3 and, since the previous generation, the M4, have long been among the world’s most desirable and popular sports cars and a series of interesting images released by the company give us an insight into just how many examples have been sold over the decades. BMW has also provided sales estimates for the new 2021 M3 and M4.

Production of the original E30-generation M3 commenced in 1986. It was produced until 1991 and over that time, 18,000 were sold. The second-generation M3 proved to be an even bigger success for the German car manufacturer, which manufactured 71,000 units over a seven-year period.

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As seen in these slides provided by BimmerToday and Bimmerpost, sales of the E46 M3, built between 2000 and 2006, were also very strong with 86,000 examples sold. Interestingly, BMW experienced a bit of sales dip with the fourth-generation (E92) model selling 66,000 units during its six-year production run. The fifth-generation, also produced for six years, sold a grand total of 111,000 units, helped in so small part by the fact that the M3 sedan spawned the new M4 Coupe.

Three variants of the new M3 and M4 will initially be offered. Starting with the M3, BMW expects the flagship M3 Competition model with the M xDrive all-wheel drive system to be the most popular, accounting for 60 per cent of sales. Meanwhile, the ‘standard’ M3 Competition is tipped to account for 28 per cent of sales while the entry-level M3 Sedan, which is also the only one available with a six-speed manual transmission, should account for 12 per cent of sales. The U.S. is expected to be the biggest market with a 41 per cent share.

As for the new M4, the range-topping M4 Competition Coupe with M xDrive all-wheel drive will likely account for about 63 per cent of sales, placing it way ahead of the rear-wheel drive M4 Competition Coupe with 29 per cent of sales. Demand for the entry-level M4 Coupe, available with the stick shift, is poised to account for just 8 per cent of total sales.