I won’t be telling anything new if I say that BMW is considered to be the car for the rich. At least that is what it is in our country. Even elsewhere, you need to have quite some Vitamin M to buy a bimmer. Talking about our neighbours, China has certainly emerged as a hub for the car industry in the past few years. And they are surely in love with luxury brands. We have the Corporate Edition for the 3 series in India. Essentially, it is a cut price version of the car and comes sans the sunroof, iDrive, 6 CD changer and a few other luxuries. There have been reports of BMW developing a similar variant of the X1 crossover and the pics here shows that this info is pretty accurate. While we love the idea of a X1 CE as it will make the car a great value for money proposition, it will be an understatement to say that we hate the name BMW has given to this car that soon goes on sale in China.
Imagine this:- You have some 20 odd lakh rupees in your bank account and you go to car shopping. You are impressed by the X1 and decide to take it home. The ONLY problem is that you will have to shout to the whole world that you are a beggar! Shocked? So were we as BMW is calling the stripped down version of the X1 ‘Qi Gai Ban’ in China. The name translates into ‘X1 beggar edition’.
True, the stripped down version has to live without trafficators on ORVMs, foglamps, headlight washers, iDrive, leather interiors, 6 CD changer but we still do not see the point behind calling this car a Beggar Edition. While we do want to get this car to India, we so wish some better sense prevails at BMW and they do away with this disgusting name. At a country where buying a Maruti Suzuki Alto is a dream for many, calling a BMW as Beggars Edition will surely leave everyone flabbergasted and insulted.
What do you say?
[Source: ChinaCarTimes.com via BitAuto.com]