BMW pulls out of World Touring Car Championship

[Weasel 555]

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If you were disappointed with BMW's decision to leave Formula One at the end of last year, hold on to your hats as the Bavarian automaker is further scaling back its racing programs, announcing the discontinuation of its factory-backed World Touring Car Championship effort for next season.

The move follows a change in leadership at BMW Motorsport in which longtime director Mario Theissen is making way for incoming boss Jens Marquardt. Last year, after pulling out of the Sauber F1 team, BMW announced it was downsizing its WTCC works effort from three factory-backed teams to just one. But following its decision to compete against Audi and Mercedes-Benz in the national DTM series, it has evidently opted to shut down that single WTCC team as well.

BMW will, however, continue supplying its recently reworked 320 TC to independent teams in the WTCC, following the same path forged by SEAT in its withdrawal from the series after claiming the championship last year. The move leaves Chevrolet and Volvo (which enters the series in a limited capacity next year after dominating the Swedish Touring Car Series) as the only works teams in the series.

Click: autoblog.com/2010/12/06/bmw-pulls-out


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[xFalleNx]

Ugh, BMW is really loosing it these days.

The cars are no-where near what they used to be and the brand in a whole is just going crappy.

The last great BMW will be the E46 M3. The new E9x platforms are just trash, they're really disappointing to drive.

Give it a few years and BMW will be done with its long racing heritage in total and there will be no more Motorsports division. They'll just turn into another overly priced, poorly made luxury car.

[SD_GR]

The connection between motorsports and sales of sporting road cars is brought up repeatedly, especially by firms who have invested their money in motorsports as a way of selling sporting road cars.

Other firms don't bother with racing at all, ever, and do just as well, enjoying just as good if not better reputations as firms that do.

Example: Lambo.

BMW will be fine. It's the motorsports series that will suffer.

[xFalleNx]

Their sales will be fine because people will always want to buy a BMW as a "status" car. Long gone are the days where a stock Bimmer is a formidable track car.

Yea their sales are doing ok and they will continue to, but that's not the whole point of it.

The people who buy a BMW because if their racing heritage and their quality of cars are now looking elsewhere because BMW no longer provides that. An average luxury car at best. Their quality is just out the door now. My ten year old 330 was way nicer than my friends new 335. Yea his was way faster, but it just felt soul-less.

I so do agree with you SD, they will "be fine". I just think of a different definition of "be fine". IMO just because a company is selling cars doesn't mean they are "fine", especially when they have lost everything they are known for and are going in a completely different direction.