To whet curiosities before the debut, BMW partnered with artist Thomas Demand to produce a set of teaser images. Everyone involved hopes you’ll appreciate the effort involved — you’ll notice we didn’t say these were teaser photographs. Demand, who works with cardboard and paper as well as a camera, took photos of the concept’s details, re-created the details in cardboard and paper, then photographed the results. Voila. Art.
Car magazine says the Vision M Next could preview the replacement for the BMW i8, said to be due in 2022. The detail Demand re-created appears to show that the M Next will maintain at least one of the i8’s signature flourishes, the floating flying buttress C-pillar suspended over a finned fender. Whereas the space between the C-pillar and fender on the i8 is open, forming a U-shaped channel that runs to the taillights, the Vision M Next fills that gap with three vanes.
Those could be decorative, or they could serve the new powertrain rumored for the i8’s successor. According to Car, that would be a four-cylinder gas-powered motor instead of the 1.5-liter three-cylinder in use now, and an electric motor with more than the present 220 horsepower and 221 pound-feet of torque.
BMW Blog expects the Vision M Next reveal to happen the week of June 25. This will be “The Month of 8,” then, since the 8 Series Gran Coupe is also due to meet the public shortly. One might be brains, and the other beauty — BWW says the Vision M Next will show how “intelligent technologies will fuel sporty driving,” and how the “person at the wheel will be turned into the ultimate driver.”
