At today's media preview of the 2022 BMW M Fest at Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit in South Africa, BMW M boss Franciscus van Meel was vehemently opposed to the suggestion that smaller three- and four-cylinder engines could come to future M cars.

Could the straight-six could one day be replaced by a high-output three-cylinder?

"I hope that was just a rhetorical question because it's clear we're not going to do any three-cylinder engines," retorted van Meel. "We're not even going to do four-cylinder engines in high-performance cars. I know there are other companies [that] are doing that, but we're not going to do that."

Those "other companies" van Meel refers to are obvious. The 2024 Mercedes-AMG C63 S E Performance features a 2.0-liter turbocharged four-pot hybrid rather than the 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 that its predecessor was powered by. And over at Toyota Gazoo Racing, the brilliance of its three-cylinder engines can be clearly seen in the GR Corolla and the GR Yaris.

But no matter how impressive those powertrains are, it seems that BMW still holds the character of the straight-six to heart and intends to maintain its longstanding love affair with the V8 too.

Whatever you may think of BMW's current design language, it is at least heartwarming to know that a tiny generator won't be masquerading as an engine in an M car anytime soon.

Unsurprisingly, van Meel also noted the 1 Series hatch won't get a full-fat M variant. As you may know, the F40 1 Series in M135i guise is powered by a 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder that is mounted transversely and feeds a front-wheel-drive-biased AWD system. Opening the hood on that car makes it blatantly obvious that a straight-six wouldn't fit in there, so the 1 Series will not be getting any hotter variants than its current M Performance range-topper.

As we have been told before, the 2023 BMW M2 will be the last non-electrified M car, but at least future hybrid systems will always be connected to a straight-six or a V8. Let's hope that never changes.