Come 2016, and BMW will be a 100 years old. What better way to celebrate than by developing a flagship car? Taking the BMW i8 as a platform, the guys at Project i will be developing a car worthy of their 100-year anniversary.
The upcoming hotter BMW i8 has been given the codename M100, and is said to feature a much more potent powertrain compared to the regular i8. The team at Project i is currently said to be testing two engine choices, the first being a 2.0 L twin-turbocharged engine with 320 bhp paired to a 204 bhp electric motor, good for a total of 524 bhp. The second combination will feature a 3.0 L straight-six with almost 480 bhp paired to a 109 bhp electric motor. The latter will have roughly 589 bhp combined.
The M100 will retain the i8’s carbon fibre upper and aluminium chassis, but the rest will be extensively redesigned, and can almost be called as a whole new vehicle. The M100 will ditch the rear seats in favour for more rear luggage-space, from what CAR Magazine reported. Besides that, the handling will be taken care by stronger brakes, wider tires and revised suspension geometry.
Performance wise, the M100 is expected to hit 0-100 km/h in just 3.5 seconds, placing it roughly half a second faster than the regular i8. This is very impressive, considering that the M100 will likely weigh more than the regular i8’s 1,490 kg.The M100 is slated for a 2016 launch, whith deliveries to begin in 2017.
