BMW teases Vision M Next concept, thought to preview i8 successor

In Munich not long hence,

BMW

will reveal the next step in its mobility plans, the Vision M Next. Unlike the Vision iNext concept, which seeks to make the transportation experience easier and more relaxing for a driver and occupants, the Vision M Next wants to make that experience more exciting. BMW calls it an opening to “a new era of Sheer Driving Pleasure,” and it will be known by its Boost mode rather than an Ease mode.

To whet curiosities before the debut, BMW partnered with artist Thomas Demand to produce a set of teaser images. Everyone involved hopes you’ll appreciate the effort involved — you’ll notice we didn’t say these were teaser photographs. Demand, who works with cardboard and paper as well as a camera, took photos of the concept’s details, re-created the details in cardboard and paper, then photographed the results. Voila. Art.

Car magazine says the Vision M Next

could preview the replacement for the

BMW i8

, said to be due in 2022. The detail Demand re-created appears to show that the M Next will maintain at least one of the

i8

‘s signature flourishes, the floating flying buttress C-pillar suspended over a finned fender. Whereas the space between the C-pillar and fender on the i8 is open, forming a U-shaped channel that runs to the taillights, the Vision M Next fills that gap with three vanes.

Those could be decorative, or they could serve the new powertrain

rumored

for the i8’s successor. According to

Car

, that would be a four-cylinder gas-powered motor instead of the 1.5-liter three-cylinder in use now, and an electric motor with more than the present 220 horsepower and 221 pound-feet of torque.

BMW Blog expects the Vision M Next

reveal to happen the week of June 25. This will be “The Month of 8,” then, since the 8 Series Gran Coupe is also due to meet the public shortly. One might be brains, and the other beauty — BWW says the Vision M Next will show how “intelligent technologies will fuel sporty driving,” and how the “person at the wheel will be turned into the ultimate driver.”