In an interview with Washington Post, Ian Robertson, BMW board member and head of sales and marketing, said sports cars may never find as many buyers as they did before the global recession.

“The sports-car market is roughly half of what it used to be,” Ian Robertson, BMW’s head of sales, said in an interview at the manufacturer’s headquarters in Munich. “Post-2008, it just collapsed. I’m not so sure it’ll ever fully recover.”

Robertson also says that BMW has seen an increase in the sales of SUVs and smaller crossovers in Europe and North America, while in China and other emerging markets, chauffer-driven limousines are more popular than ever.

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To avoid any backlash, Robertson adds that BMW will continue to build performance cars, staying true to its DNA, the upcoming sports car developed together with Toyota is the perfect example.

Combined global sales of the Audi TT, Mercedes-Benz SLK and BMW’s Z4 peaked at about 114,000 in 2007 before slumping 45 percent by 2010, according to research company IHS Automotive.

Rumors of a future BMW supercar surface more often these days and the expectations are that in 2016, to properly celebrate 100 years of existence, BMW might finally satisfy the enthusiasts’ dreams by building a proper supercar.