Toyota GRMN

The Art of the Sub-Brand: Performance

The Art of the Sub-Brand: Performance Performance sub-brands give buyers something special By Randy Lioz, Editor, Car-ED.com | July 2018 Carmakers love to produce "special" cars that appeal to an enthusiast audience. The market abounds with models that display a certain letter that indicates they're ready to take on some of the most high-performance machines out there, and come out a winner. Many of these vehicles have four doors, or even an SUV body, yet underneath lurks the equipment that can enable a super-fast lap time at one of the world's premier racetracks. Here we'll take a look at the history of this trend, and what's out there for enthusiasts in today's market. Where did the trend start? M535i, photo credit: BMW Most enthusiasts credit BMW with kicking off the trend with its Motorsport division, which was shortened to just M. While its origins were in racing, in the late-1970s M started developing cars for the road, the first being its famous M1 supercar. But the first car that really set the template for the models that abound today was the 1979 M535i, a pumped-up version of the first-generation 5 Series. The car pictured at right displays the M division's tri-color striping. E30 M3, photo credit: Rudolf Stricker From there BMW began tuning an increasing number of its models, with some particular versions achieving legendary status, like the M3 [...]

2018-07-14T01:30:24-04:00Jul 2018|News, Research|