The arrival of the new 328i xDrive gave BMW traction to push past rival Mercedes last year.
If you’re hoping to sell a luxury car in the populous New York metropolitan these days, you better hope it has all-wheel drive. Indeed, in a growing portion of the country, even in Sunbelt states, AWD has become a must. And in snow country, dealers report a conventional, rear-drive model like the BMW 3-Series might sit for months on the lot unsold.
No wonder the Bavarian maker’s dealers were so anxious to get the new all-wheel version of the latest 3-Series, which finally reached U.S. showrooms last month, said Ian Robertson, the BMW AG board member in charge of global sales.
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“We had a seven-month backlog of orders for the 3-Series with all-wheel drive,” he said. “Those cars were delivered in December,” he said, noting BMW had delayed the introduction of the all-wheel-drive version of the 3-Series.
