BMW of North America will introduce the all-new 6 series Gran Turismo this fall as a 2018 model.
The five-door 6 series GT joins the lineup just months after BMW's 5 series Gran Turismo went out of production in February of this year. Though the 6 series GT is also based on the 5 series architecture and some have painted it as a successor to the 5 series GT, BMW is avoiding that description.
"We are staying away from calling it a successor because the car has gotten substantially larger in size and the positioning has changed," BMW of North America spokesman Alex Schmuck said. "It's definitely a 6 series Gran Turismo."
Schmuck wouldn't say whether BMW would eventually bring back the 5 series GT. The previous model went out of production as part of BMW's move to the redesigned 5 series, which went on sale in February in the U.S. with a sedan body style.
With five doors and a greenhouse styled like a coupe, the 6 series GT provides more legroom and rear headroom than a conventional sedan and combines luxury sedan comfort with the aesthetic appeal of a coupe, BMW says.
In the U.S., the 6 series GT will be offered exclusively as a 640i xDrive model starting at $70,695, including destination. It is powered by a turbocharged 3.0-liter, six-cylinder inline gasoline engine producing 335 hp and 332 pounds-feet of torque. It goes from 0 to 60 mph in 5.1 seconds, BMW says.
In the 6 series lineup, the 640i xDrive Gran Turismo joins the 6 series Gran Coupe and the 6 series convertible. The 2018 6 series Gran Coupe and convertible went on sale this spring. The 6 series coupe was dropped earlier this year in the U.S. That happened because a technical upgrade in BMW's iDrive system for the new model year wasn't being included on the coupe body style, "and we wanted to have the same iDrive system across all models," Schmuck said.
