Canada may not be the biggest market for BMW, but Canadian drivers have an unusually strong appetite for some of the brand’s most desirable machinery. Per capita, we buy more M cars than almost anywhere else. That might explain why BMW blessed this country with a Canadian-exclusive limited-edition of just 300 units: the 2024 BMW M440i xDrive Gran Coupe Legacy Edition.
It’s not a gran coupe in the sense that it’s meant for your granny, (although we’re sure she’d love it). It’s a Gran Coupe, which is BMW-speak for a flashy four-door with a fastback silhouette and a hatchback trunk.
Sadly, this will likely be your last chance to get one of these 4 Series Gran Coupe’s with BMW’s legendary straight-six engine under the hood. It seems that body style will be exclusive to the brand’s all-electric i4. (We drove the i4, and it’s spectacular, but there’s no denying we will miss BMW’s straight-sixes when they’re gone.)
So, BMW Canada is bringing back the straight-six M440 Gran Coupe for one last hurrah and sending it off right with this special edition. Hence: Legacy Edition. This is a car for connoisseurs and people who appreciate what BMW does best. That is, making overpowered sport sedans (or, in this case, hatchbacks) that handle like a dream and run circles around many actual so-called sports cars.
We couldn’t have spec’d them better if we’d done it ourselves. All 300 of these M440’s have all the tasty option-boxes ticked, including adaptive M suspension, gorgeous 20-inch BMW Individual wheels, the M Sport Pro pack that includes blacked-out exterior trim and red brake calipers. It’s topped off with carbon-fibre interior trim, plus front and rear heated seats, to name but a few luxuries.
Buyers can choose from a series of interior/exterior colour combos, some of which will be more limited than others. Here’s the breakdown:
The 225 cars with factory paint colours will hit showrooms in January 2024 at $81,750. The 75 cars with Individual Manufaktur paints and interior trim will go for $89,750, and have the added bonus of a fruity-sounding BMW M performance exhaust system.
For our money, the choice is easy: Aurora Diamond Green over Tartufo Merino Leather. But there’ll only be 25 of those cars in Canada, or the world for that matter, so if you want one we’d suggest giving your dealer a call pronto.
Nearly $90,000 is a high price to pay though, no doubt. To put it in perspective, BMW’s M3 sedan starts at $89,500. The M3 is a much more serious, hardcore machine, but people seeking more on-road comfort and a less-manic driving experiance would probably be better off with the M440 Gran Coupe.
Yes! BMW has done quite a few cool and under-the-radar special editions for Canadian connoisseurs.
There was the BMW M8 Individual Manufaktur Edition, launched in October 2019. Only 20 examples were built. It was an homage to the, “original and renowned M8 Coupé prototype from the early 90’s” that sadly never made it to production. Like that prototype, the Individual Manufaktur Edition is painted fire red. Under the hood is M’s twin-turbo V8, good for 617 horsepower and a 0-100 km/h time of 3.2 seconds. It didn’t come cheap either, at $198,000. More recently, BMW Canada announced an M440i xDrive M Performance Edition, a two-door coupe limited to 100 units and exclusive to Canada.
The greatest Canadian-special of all time, however, has to be the Canadian-spec 1994 BMW M3 (E36). Only 45 of them got built before the project was cancelled, and they’re all highly sought-after these days. What made the Canadian E36 M3 so special was that they had the European-spec straight-six engine, developed by BMW Motorsport, with individual throttle bodies and continuously variable valve timing. The U.S. market got a neutered engine, a mildly warmed-over version of what was in the standard 3 Series. To get the full story, I previously spoke to man behind that project, Tom Plucinsky, who was product planning manager at BMW Canada at the time. It was a labour of love for everyone who worked on it, he said, done with no budget and through backchannels.
Only time will tell whether this new M440 Legacy Edition is destined for a cult-collectable status like the Canadian E36 M3. For now, though, we can say that the 2024 BMW M440i xDrive Gran Coupe Legacy Edition will certainly be a very cool car to have in 10 years or so.
The post Canadian Exclusive: Meet the BMW Limited Edition M440 Gran Coupe appeared first on Sharp Magazine.
