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Brand image, some people care more and others care less. I am kind of on the same camp with Fission. But, more importantly, my point is that this is all about business. I do not think BMW is ready to dilute the brand image by selling cheap cars. Nor they are trying to compete with likes of Camry's and Accord's, at least in the US. If BMW were trying to do it, they would use 4-cylinders and lesser diesels. BMW's hands are tied to do that in the US because there is a perception that 4-cylinder BMW (as well as hatchback) is a guaranteed failure. I am not going to predict if 1-series is goint to be a huge success or not because it probably mostly depends on the price. If they sold 128 at $25K or less, it would be a no-brainer success, but it's not going to happen. The price range BMW can play around makes this prediction really difficult because as Fission mentioned, if the price difference is insignificant many people are likely to skip 1-series and move to 3-series (I could be one of them).
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