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Originally Posted by The HACK
All of us here screaming "shut up and take my money" isn't enough to make BMW want to bring a new Z4 M Coupe. BMW will probably be able to sell 1,000 really quick, then demand will quickly die down. Especially considering there are three big siblings that this chassis will have to compete with, the M2, M3, and M4 now, and BMW really can't afford to, nor want to, cannibalize those sales in favor of the Z4 M Coupe.
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I don't think there is much concern about a two seat sports car taking sales from a four seat sports coupe (much less, a four door sports sedan). If that were an issue, then the Corvette and Porsche 718 would be much larger concerns for the M vehicles than they are. And that includes convertible models too, for that matter. Sure, there are some who buy based on spec sheets and just want a car with XXXhp and some arbitrary number of seats (or even arbitrary number of doors as the case may inexplicably be) but these are not the usual suspects when it comes to competition for BMW's sport coupes and convertibles. BMW is more concerned with similar four seat models from Mercedes, Audi, and to a lesser degree perhaps, the Japanese luxury brands.
Furthermore, this would also mean similar fears of the Series Z4 canibalizing 2 and 4 Series convertible models, yet however real those fears may be, they obviously don't dictate that a Z4 cannot exist.
The bigger issue here is that passenger car sales are shrinking, and sports car sales have been one of the hardest hit segments over the past couple decades. The reality is that, without the all-out performance pedigree of the Porsche or Corvette brands, BMW would unfortunately risk being unable to compete for the "Cars and Coffee"-caliber enthusiast's dollar in two door sales. This is why - the entire coupe discussion aside - there is no high performance AMG SLC model today and why BMW has no high performance M model planned either. By the numbers, they've been squeezed out of the market.
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If one was ever made, I believe it won't get the M3/M4 motor. It probably won't get the M2 motor either, and if it does, it will have to be priced significantly higher than the M2 as to not compete. In that case, the real alternative is an "is" version of the 3.0 liter, and at that point, there's not enough separation from the run of the mill 3.0 to warrant an M.
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The "M2 motor" - the N55B30T0 a is a dead man walking. It's replacement - the B58B30T0 - is already here in the G01 X3 M40i. In fact, a G29 Z4 M40i model is known to be coming and is all but 100% assured to get that same engine (the only other possibility is a B58 with less power which would be a very difficult choice to understand given the M40i model designation).
A Z4 M model, if they were to build one, would most probably use the 450hp+ S58B30 engine which is slated to arrive first in the X3 M and X4 M by 2019, and which will also more than likely power the next generation M3 and M4 starting early next decade. I actually think that this would be be a compelling product; however, what I say above still applies - you have very tough competition at very difficult to match price points. Still, if SCOTT is to be believed on this point, BMW has not ruled the possibility out completely if demand for the Series models exceeds expectations.