BMW M is shuffling their executive at the top of the M division. Dr. Friedrich Nitschke was in charge since 2011 when he took over for Dr. Kay Segler who had a very short run from 2009-2011. Nitschke is responsible for the new F80 M3 and F82 M4. He is retiring and Franciscus van Meel will join M in October and be phased in slowly before Nitschke officially steps down at the end of the year. Does this mean M will get some much needed fresh air?

Possibly. Franciscus van Meel previously worked as the head of Audi's Quattro performance division. Audi certainly improved under Meel who was replaced earlier this year apparently for failing to get the Audi R8 E-Tron into production. This lead to him ditching a role with Audi in Asia to get back to building German muscle cars which we can not blame him for.

Will Franciscus van Meel actually make any real enthusiast friendly changes at M or just keep things going in the direction of sales figures and profit margins above all else? BimmerBoost bets on the latter.

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Franciscus van Meel assumes management of BMW M GmbH
23.09.2014

Munich. Franciscus van Meel (48) will take over as Chairman of the Board of Management of BMW M GmbH from 1 January 2015. He is the successor to Dr. Friedrich Nitschke (59) who will be retiring at the end of the year.

Francisus van Meel, who will already be joining the BMW Group on 1 October, was last active as Managing Directory of quattro GmbH, a subsidiary of Audi AG. Since 1996 he has held various management positions in chassis development and the technical steering of vehicle projects at Audi AG before becoming Managing Director of quattro GmbH in 2012.

Dr. Friedrich Nitschke worked for the BMW Group for a total of 36 years. Since joining the company in 1978 he has held management positions in various company areas before taking over as director of development strategy, steering and testing. From 2007 to 2011 he headed vehicle development of the MINI brand. In 2011 he became Chairman of the Board of Management of BMW M GmbH. Under his leadership the category BMW M Performance Automobiles was created as well as the new generation of the BMW M3 and BMW M4 models developed.

Dr. Herbert Diess, Member of the Board of Management for Development: "The position of M GmbH on the market has never been better in the company's history and it continues to achieve sales record after sales record. Friedrich Nitschke has done outstanding work over the past years and has made a crucial contribution to the success of the company. The entire Board of Management of BMW AG would like to express its gratitude to him."