Rumored: BMW to Sell AWD M3 Alongside Nerfed RWD M3

Bimmerfest.com Member - Sebastien Bell 

Enthusiasts will have to suffer to buy a RWD or manual G80 M3, according to a report from BMW Blog.

The report cites an unnamed source who alleges that the M3 will be available in both xDrive AWD and sDrive RWD configurations. According to the source, though, the xDrive M3 will not be available with a manual transmission.

The good news is that the RWD M3 will be offered with a manual transmission. The bad news is that the BMW Blog alleges that the RWD M3 will come with less power than the AWD M3. 

No figures are quoted, but the result of less power and fewer driven wheels should be a RWD M3 that’s considerably slower to accelerate than the AWD M3.

If we were to pull out our crystal ball and look into the future, we would predict that the twin siren calls of more power and faster 0-60 times will lead to fewer sales of the manual RWD M3, which will in time be used to justify its discontinuation.

While such a decision (if it’s even being made) could be born of necessity (maybe BMW doesn’t have easy access to the hardware that would allow a manual to handle the M3's full measure of power), but we can’t help but feel a little disappointed by this rumor. The silver lining, though, is that if the rumor is true, BMW hasn’t already killed the manual M3.