At the beginning of the year, BMWBLOG spoke with Adrian van Hooydonk about the brand’s unified styling approach. BMW Group’s Head of Design told us at CES that future combustion and electric cars will look nearly identical. Well, at least until you get up close and compare them side by side: “I think you will be hard-pressed [from a distance] to tell which one is the electric one and which is the combustion engine. It’s going to be that close.”
That strategy will extend to the next-generation M3 (G84) and its purely electric counterpart, the ZA0. In an interview with Top Gear magazine, Mike Reichelt, the man in charge of the Neue Klasse program, confirmed that both flavors of the sports sedan will be cut from the same cloth. He claims the M3s will share “the same design and digital features.”
We’ve already seen spy shots of the electric M3 with its production body, while the inline-six model remains under wraps. However, car paparazzi have captured the next-gen 3 Series Sedan (G50) as an M Performance model. The adjacent spy images make it easy to spot the similarities between the M3 EV and the M340i-replacing M350. When we spoke with van Hooydonk, he mentioned that the electric versions would have shorter noses, but everything else would be the same.
The two sides of the M3 might share more than just their design and minimalist interior with the new iDrive. The G84 and ZA0 could even sound similar, as the latter is expected to feature an artificial inline-six soundtrack. As for the real thing, the upcoming gas model will use a “new type of six-cylinder engine,” according to Reichelt. We believe he was referring to a mild-hybrid version of the S58 powertrain.
BMW hasn’t revealed when the cars will debut, but we have it on good authority that the ZA0 will arrive first, possibly as early as 2027. Its gasoline counterpart is rumored to enter production in July 2028. Like the EV, the combustion-engine model may be offered exclusively with an automatic transmission. It’s unclear whether M intends to offer both rear- and all-wheel drive versions of the electric M3 but we’ve heard the ICE model might go xDrive-only. Source: Top Gear
M3 ZA0 Spy Photos
M350 G50 Spy Photos
