4 out of 5 BMW 1-series owners think their car is FWD

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http://www.autocar.co.uk/News/NewsArticle/AllCars/248407/
Four out of five BMW 1-series drivers think their car is front-wheel drive, according to the firm’s CEO Norbert Reithofer.

Reithofer revealed the statistic in a conference call to journalists following the announcement of BMW’s financial results. He admitted the company found the 1-series survey results to be “quite a surprise”.

Reithofer was justifying BMW’s decision to start producing BMW-branded front-wheel-drive cars on the next-generation Mini’s platform, which is due in 2014.

The platform, covering front and four-wheel-drive models, will be used for both the third-generation Mini and for a range of BMW models between 3.8m and 4.3m long.

According to industry reports, there could eventually be up to 20 individual BMW and Mini-badged models based on the new BMW-engineered platform. The dual length of the platform would enable it to cover models sized from a typical supermini to a Golf-sized car.
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I know there isn't much love for the 1-series and it's typical driver around here, but the story still made me laugh.

Hearing about plans for FWD BMWs made me sad though. Even though I'm not a fan of them, it was still nice to have a brand around where RWD is part of the brand identity.
 
Not surprising really.

Clueless people buy the 1 series.
Clueless people don't know about cars.
And they wonder why the back of the car steps out in the wet and why they can't drive on snow :p
 
To most people what wheels are driven make very little difference. Its only when pushing on that steering feel and the driven wheels make themselves known to anyone interested. The vast majority of people buying cars don't care these days.
 
So they're finally realising that RWD is completely unsuitable for a little hatch-back and they were stupid to think it would ever work?
 
Thats what I was thinking. Typical ownership profiles etc

Dont BMW make quite a big deal of the fact its the only RWD car in it's class in all the marketing material?
 
To be honest, I'd be willing to bet that 4/5 drivers of any car make or model that isn't specifically a 4x4 would guess that their car was FWD or just wouldn't know.
 
Moeks said:
4 out of 5 1 series drivers are probably morons though to be fair.
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Obviously.

How many people, that bought a brand new 118d, are intelligent? Probably none. :p The 1 out of 5 will be the people who drive the 130's/135's at a guess.
 
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This is what cars and computers both have in common - a small minority of true enthusiasts who actually understand various technical aspects, and a large majority of complete noobs who barely know anything about how they work. The worst bit is many *don't even want to learn*, they just want it to magically "work" and blame everyone but themselves when they break something.

Reminds me of a friend, she got her older brother's old car when he moved up, she couldn't even tell what make or model it was. Just an "oh, it's blue..."
 
Rilot said:
To be honest, I'd be willing to bet that 4/5 drivers of any car make or model that isn't specifically a 4x4 would guess that their car was FWD or just wouldn't know.
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This.

Plus, if BMW were launching a RWD platform, I'm sure they could come up with some different survey results...
 
I expect the vast majority of 1 series drivers are people that have them as a company car. For example, my old manager picked a 118d because it was 'nicer to drive than an A3 and more interesting than a golf'. He doesn't care that its not very quick or that its RWD. He cares that the company are paying for it, it does 50mpg, costs little in company car tax, and is an all round good car.
 
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