Usually, we herald the introduction of a brand-new BMW. Even when it challenges our preconceptions about the brand—as did the 1999 X5, the 2002 7-series, and, more recently, the oddly appealing slant-back X6—we try to keep an open mind. But BMW is pushing the limits of our love with its 2010 5-series Gran Turismo, aka 5-series GT, which we first saw in concept form at the Geneva auto show. BMW claims the inaptly named GT's pragmatic sheetmetal will attract Lexus buyers.
You don’t have to twist our arms very far to get us to write about roadsters, particularly those of German descent. This explains why we have composed three separate drive stories on the slick new 2009 BMW Z4 since March.
Forget the clunky name. It doesn't do the X5 with BMW's new-generation, 50-state-legal diesel engine on-board justice. Far removed from the smelly, noisy, American stereotype, the engine serves as an excellent ambassador to the U.S., offering a glimpse at the available civility of the powerful -- and fuel-efficient -- diesels coming ashore lately.
You have to hand it to BMW: the Bavarian automaker continues its drive to boldly go where no market niche has gone before -- whether it makes sense or not. Munich's latest segment-busting creation has officially arrived in the form of its BMW Concept 5 Series Gran Turismo that will make its bow on the world stage at next month's Geneva Motor Show.
A somewhat less honorable way to stand out is to purposely hold back at first and then impressively show huge improvement. Has BMW done just that with its 7-series? Even though the new, fifth-generation 7-series follows suit as the technology pacesetter by adding a bunch of high-tech features including active suspension damping, rear-wheel steering, night vision with pedestrian detection, lane-change warning, and side-view cameras, the biggest news is BMW’s backpedaling from some of the previous 7’s, uh, “breakthroughs.”
BMW doesn't make a 323d. Too many diesels in the line-up already, the story goes - too expensive and risky to try and squeeze another engine into the near-invisible gap between the 320d and the 325d. So, if you want BMW's lovely bi-turbo four-pot in your life, you'll have to make do with the 123d.
It takes quite an eBay listing to tear us away from a famous Ferrari Enzo, but this might just do it. This is a 1979 BMW M1 in full ProCar trim. We want it. Very much. Not least because it’s road-legal. Though it looks like a track-only M1, this is in fact one of the 456 road-spec production M1s built by BMW between 1978 and 1981.
German SUV crossover-Babylon careers onward with the Paris show launch of the BMW X1. Currently labelled a concept, it's absolutely the real thing, and you'll be able to buy it late next year. So BMW will have these things in three sizes: X5, X3 and X1. Oh and then the X6 coupe-thing. You've gotta say that the X1 does make the X3 look messy and old-hat though.
Few things in life are constant, but I’d like to add German car face-lifts to the ‘death and taxes’ cliché. Never mind a month, a week doesn’t go by without someone announcing another one. Audi, Mercedes, BMW – they’re all as bad as one another with the minor surgery. The ‘new’ 3-Series is no different. And this is a problem from an enivronmental point of view. BMW is pushing this agenda harder than most, but then imagine the waste and energy required for re-tooling all these minor parts.
What do we need the skin of a car for anyway?" asks Chris Bangle of BMW design, sounding for all the world like a man who's just had a bump on the head. Well, Chris, if BMWs didn't have door skins, and roofs didn't contain any roof material, we'd all be barging around in roundel-badged Ariel Atom analogues, covered in flies, and soaking wet.
'The latest shape M3s still attract the attentions of people who work in business solutions excellence systems'
Aside from Harold Shipman and the Church of Scientology, few things have as much of an image problem in Britain as the BMW M cars. In Germany, where kids dream of being engineers, and technical precision is some kind of aphrodisiac, this probably doesn't exist, but here in the UK driving an M car always comes with the slight whiff of twattishness.
The original M3 might be an object lesson in track-tuned, homologation special handing but, as they slip into the classic category, there's also something horribly nerdy about them.
