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BMW X1 M35i off the cards for this generation

The compact performance SUV class is set grow rapidly over the next 12 months, but BMW will be waiting until at least 2023 for an X1 fettled by M.


Although the X2 M35i shares its platform with the recently-updated X1, the company has confirmed we won’t see an M Performance version of the more practical X1 in this generation.

"We won't see M Performance in X1 until the next generation," Brendan Michel, BMW Australia’s product and market planning boss, told media in New Zealand. "We've just announced [the facelift], so you're looking at another three and a half years."

“We would love to have it,” he said.

The closest thing to an X1 M35i – an X1 with M Performance parts. 

The more family-focused X1 more than doubled X2 sales in June, and has 440 more deliveries to date in 2019 despite the lack of a proper M Performance variant. The highest-performance X1 on offer is the xDrive25i, with 170kW and 350Nm.

Power in the X2 M35i also comes from a turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine, but it outputs a much meatier 225kW and 450Nm, and has a more rear-biased xDrive system with a locking differential on the front axle. The powertrain is shared with the recently-revealed M135i.

Audi has the SQ2 arriving the fourth quarter of 2019, and Mercedes-AMG has offered the GLA 45 since 2014. When the next-generation GLA launches, that AMG range will expand to include a slightly softer, GLA 35. The recently-revealed GLB will also spawn AMG variants, although they're yet to be revealed.

Although it won't be getting the X1 M35i it craves, BMW Australia will welcome a glut of new models to its SUV line-up before the end of 2019, with a new entry-level X5 and petrol V8 X5 and X7 options joining the range.

The updated BMW X1 range is pencilled in for a fourth quarter launch in Australia, with pricing and specifications to be detailed closer to that time. Stay tuned.

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