BMW M boss confirms new M3 is production-ready but is still more than a year away

BMW M president Markus Flasch has confirmed the new BMW M3 is ready for production, as indicated by a leaked shot of its rear-end last week, but says it won’t be released until 2021.

Speaking with carsales during the 2019 BMW M Festival at the Kyalami circuit in South Africa, Flasch confirmed the both the new BMW M3 sedan and M4 coupe will go into production in late 2020, before their official launch in early 2021 – meaning both core M models remain more than a year away.

“The [M3] pictures didn’t leak on purpose,” he said. “I mean, the car’s ready. It’s a pre-production car that leaked.”

Flasch offered no reason for the significant gap between prototype and production for the new M3, which looks like it will escape the controversial new ‘big mouth’ grille design of the next BMW M4 Coupe, as previewed by the polarising Concept 4 show car at Frankfurt in September.

But the BMW M chief did confirm reports that both the M3 and M4 will be available in rear-wheel drive as well as all-wheel drive forms, and with both manual and automatic transmissions.

“We haven’t officially confirmed it, but I can tell you we are very likely to offer rear-wheel drive and all-wheel drive, manual and automatic for both models,” he said.

The engine of the new M3 and M4 has already been previewed by the BMW X3 M and X4 M – a new 3.0-litre turbo-petrol inline six that 353kW/600Nm in standard form, rising to 375Nm in Competition spec.