BMW "i440" and M440i Rendered With Oversized Kidney Grilles

The kidney grille has always been a design standard for BMW, the second-best way of identifying the German automaker’s cars from others after the roundel emblem. Some kidneys, however, are very polarizing.

Take the G22 generation of the 4 Series as an example. Some claim it makes the two-door coupe look more aggressive than its predecessor, a better-looking car that will attract new customers to the brand. Others – myself included – are not so fond of the grille because it’s look-at-me ginormous and because the four- and six-cylinder mill of the G22 don’t need extra cooling.

Regardless of my or your opinion, BMW is sticking to its guns. Even the Concept i4 exhibits the infamous snout yet the production version will have the grilles covered in order to improve driving range through slipperier aerodynamics. The i440 by pixel artist Kleber Silva serves as a preview of things to come, albeit with two instead of four doors.

Revealed in March 2020, the i4 fully-electric sedan delivers 390 kW (530 PS or 523 horsepower) from a rear-mounted electric motor. Indeed, one instead of the more usual dual-motor configuration found in Tesla’s cars.

The concept, therefore, is more powerful than the M4 and M850i for that matter, capable of sprinting to 100 kph (62 mph) in roughly four seconds. Thanks to 80 kWh of lithium-ion battery capacity, a range of up to 600 kilometers (373 miles) in the WLTP is also worth mentioning.

Silva has also envisioned the M440i, and the real deal won’t differ too much from the M340i under the skin. The two share the CLuster ARchitecture (CLAR) platform, and under the hood, the B58B30O1 single-turbo engine promises 387 PS (382 horsepower) and 500 Nm (369 pound-feet) of torque. If those numbers sound familiar to you, that’s because the Toyota Supra is gifted with this mill as well for the 2021 model year.

The M4, which is expected to reinterpret the G22 snout in a sportier fashion than the M440i and lesser models, will be treated to the S58 twin-turbo engine. The straight-six with 3.0 liters of displacement is good for 480 PS (473 horsepower) as standard and 510 PS (503 horsepower) in Competition spec.

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