We Matched Every Month To A BMW, And The M4 Got Left Out
Article Summary
- Every month is matched to a current BMW by badge number, a real date, or the weather, from the G87 M2 in February to the G99 M5 Touring in December.
- The badge pattern of 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 only holds because the calendar includes the M8, which ended production in October 2025.
- Two of the eleven road cars can no longer be ordered new, and June belongs to the M Hybrid V8 that took second at Le Mans in 2026.
How hard can it be to pair twelve BMWs with twelve months? Harder than it ought to be, actually. Think of this as a matchmaking service with a rather strict intake form. No car gets a month because it’s pretty or quick or because somebody on staff fancies it. It needs a proper reason: a number on the boot lid that lines up with the month, a real date on the racing or show calendar, or the sort of weather that makes the pairing obvious. Turn up without one of those and you’re politely shown the door, whatever your horsepower.
To be clear, this is a graphic and not a buyer’s guide. A buyer’s guide would have to explain why some of these cars can no longer be ordered. Here, they’re simply matches that worked on paper, even if a couple of them have since left town.
The Twelve Pairings
- January: iX M70. 650 hp, xDrive, near-silent, and up to 303 miles of EPA range. The cold month gets the car that doesn’t care about snow or noise complaints.
- February: G87 M2. Month two takes the 2, which still offers a manual, a straight-six, and rear-wheel drive.
- March: G81 M3 Touring. Month three, and the first production M3 wagon BMW has ever built.
- April: i4 M60. Four for April. The electric Gran Coupe makes up to 593 hp in Sport mode and is on sale today.
- May: G90 M5. Fifth month, the M5, with 717 hp from a plug-in hybrid V8.
- June: M Hybrid V8. Le Mans runs in June, so June gets the race car BMW won’t sell you.
- July: i7 M70. Seven for July. 650 hp, a theatre screen for the rear seats, and no engine noise.
- August: M8 Competition. Eight for August.
- September: iX3 50 xDrive. Show season. The Neue Klasse iX3 broke cover at IAA Munich in September 2025.
- October: XM Label. Oktoberfest wraps up in early October, so the month gets the loudest thing M builds, with 738 hp.
- November: X3 M50 xDrive. The clocks fall back, the commute goes dark, and 393 hp in a sensible SUV starts to make a lot of sense.
- December: G99 M5 Touring. Close the year hauling everything home, with 717 hp.
The Badge Math Stops Adding Up
The most satisfying stretch of the calendar runs from February to August, where the model numbers line up with the months almost by themselves: 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8. It looks tidy until you notice what’s holding it together.
June is the first crack. There is no 6 in BMW’s current lineup worth the name, no 6 Series and no i6, so June had to be solved with a race car and a date instead. Then there’s the 8. August only works because we allowed a car BMW has stopped building. M8 production ended in October 2025, and the regular 8 Series followed. Take the M8 out and the numeric spine is 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, with a gap in the middle and nothing at the end.
The edges are worse. January could have gone to a 1-badged car if BMW still built anything like the 1M, and it doesn’t. June once had an easy answer too: the V12 LMR won Le Mans in 1999, and back then a V12 still sat at the top of the road car range. Today BMW doesn’t put a V12 in anything wearing its roundel.
Past August, the badges stop matching the months at all. That’s where the second half of the year turns to show dates, a beer festival, and the shortening days.
Two Of Eleven Can’t Be Ordered
The June pick doesn’t count against the lineup, since nobody could ever order one. It earned its month anyway: at the 2026 24 Hours of Le Mans, Dries Vanthoor put the #15 car on BMW M Motorsport’s first-ever Le Mans pole, and the #20 car of Robin Frijns, Rene Rast, and Sheldon van der Linde finished second overall, BMW’s best result there since 1999.
That leaves eleven road cars, and two of them are already out of reach. The M8 is gone, and the iX M70 is also out of official configurators, but can still be found on dealer lots. American readers can make it three, since the M3 Touring was never sold in the US. This calendar was built from cars that felt current, and within a year a sixth of it has left the configurator. With Neue Klasse arriving on the schedule it is, we’d expect the i4 to feel the same pressure by 2027.
Which Month Got Robbed
Our pick is April. Four for April was the easiest rule on the page, and the M4 was left standing at the altar while the i4 M60 took the month. The electric car had the better argument on the rules we set, since it’s one of BMW’s best selling car and it has a fresh output bump. Still, a calendar with a 4 slot and no M4 in it is going to hear about that. November has a case as well. The X3 M50 was the best-selling model BMW M delivered in 2025, which makes it a sensible match and a slightly dull one. The X5 M and X6 M didn’t get a month either.
So tell us which month you’d swap, and who you’d set it up with instead. The only rule is the one we held ourselves to: badge number, real date, or weather. “It’s my favorite” doesn’t count.
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