Nashville is the city where bridal parties drink to live country music and wake up to a fried-chicken breakfast, at which point the cycle restarts. Now it is the one city where, at the tap of a phone screen, a shiny BMW M2 can be ushered to your doorstep.
BMW is testing a monthly subscription service for residents of the greater Nashville area who are willing to drop at least $2000 per month. Called Access by BMW, the program will operate through a handful of dealerships that have promised to detail, fuel, and deliver as many new BMWs as are desired by curious customers who don’t want to fuss with the whole car-ownership thing. As a rotating flavor-of-the-month club, it’s similar to Porsche Passport (Atlanta) and Book by Cadillac (New York, Los Angeles, Dallas). Insurance, maintenance, and all taxes are included, with a $575 entry fee to partly cover the cost of a credit and driving-history check. BMW says it won’t care if you keep the car for months on end or demand a new one every day. It’s all scheduled through an app, and a friendly driver will swap you into a well-equipped coupe, convertible, sedan, or SUV. Drivers are responsible for gas, but unlike a rental-car company, the BMW service charges the market price, not $10 per gallon.
The Legend plan includes the M2 as well as the 4-series, 5-series, X5, and plug-in-hybrid variants of those cars. The M plan costs $3700, which is $700 more per month than Porsche charges to “subscribe” to a 911 Carrera S. For that, you’ll pick from the M4 and M6 convertibles, X5M, X6M, and our comparison-test-winning M5. Both plans can be canceled at any time, or suspended indefinitely for $200 should the customer be fatigued from swapping into so many new BMWs. The catches: Drivers must be 21, plus there’s a $1000 insurance deductible and a 2000-mile monthly limit, and BMW will track your every move via GPS. Conceivably, they’d know (and be upset) if you drove on a racetrack.
- Porsche Launches Passport Subscription Program: Unlimited Miles, Most Models, Flat Fee
- Caddys of Conquest: Book by Cadillac Subscription Service Expands to Dallas and L.A.
- 2017 BMW M2 in Depth: The Ultimate Driving Machine Rises Again
On a fun but totally useless note, the app also totals the MSRPs of every car driven, so you can whip out your phone at the bar and brag about how you drove a million dollars’ worth of cars in 30 days. For some Tennesseans, that’s important. The service starts in May.
Clifford Atiyeh is a reporter and photographer for Car and Driver, specializing in business, government, and litigation news. He is president of the New England Motor Press Association and committed to saving both manuals and old Volvos.
