Strangely enough, there is BMW news today, other than that of the new F90-gen M5. In fact, there’s some news of an equally beloved BMW — the M2. According to a recent report from Auto Motor und Sport, a new BMW M2 will hit the market in 2020 and will retain is place as the brand’s flagship small car.

According to the report, BMW realizes that the M2 has become a very big fan favorite. It’s the car that seemingly brought the brand back from the brink of total-technological-complication. Fans love it, car enthusiasts love it and journalists love it. So BMW realizes that it can’t get rid of the M2 after just one generation, like it did with the 1 Series M. Thankfully, BMW made this realization and we’ll be getting another M2 in a few years.

Now, we don’t have any official info, but the report speculates that the next-gen BMW M2 will stay true to its roots. So it will supposedly keep its turbocharged inline-six and rear-wheel drive. For something as small as the M2, don’t expect BMW’s new M-tuned xDrive. It’s also nice to hear that BMW will keep the famous I6 engine. Rather than downsize and go turbo-four or even hybrid, BMW seems as if it wants to stay true to its roots with the M2. What will really be interesting will be if the M2 retains the manual gearbox. Our guess is probably not.

It’s said that the upcoming 2020 BMW M2 will stay as BMW halo small car as well. With the 1 Series making the switch to front-wheel drive, it now moves even further down market from the 2 Series. And with the BMW M2 being the cream of the 2 Series crop, it’s naturally the small car halo car.

Auto Motor und Sport also created a render of the 2020 BMW M2 (seen above). It looks like the current M2 with some fancy headlights. Though, it does looks sort of cool, so we wouldn’t be upset with that. I guess we’ll have to wait until 2020 to really find out, though.

[Source: Auto Motor und Sport]