Sections: Video Jun 25th, 2010 1 Comment Traditionally, the last days of May and first days of June see the Grand-Am Rolex and Continental Sports Car Challenge Series holding back-to-back events at Lime Rock Park and Watkins Glen International.
Sections: In the Press Jun 24th, 2010 10 Comments 
A serious accident on back roads near the ‘Ring has claimed the life of Toyota’s famous chief test engineer and driver, Hiromu Naruse. He was behind the wheel of a Lexus LFA prototype when it was involved in a crash with a BMW 3 Series.
The BMW involved was a production 3 Series sedan with two people working for BMW on board. The Police investigation is ongoing so BMW will not comment on circumstances of the crash.
Sections: F25 X3 | Official News Jun 23rd, 2010 4 Comments 
The official unveiling of the new X3 is coming very soon (next week if what we are hearing is correct). BMW has teased the X3 over the last year but now they have launched a teaser website with more images and bits of info about the 8 speed transmission and the new 35i version.
The teaser site can be found here. While it is not earth shattering in nature it is worth a few minutes if you have time to kill.
Oh and the login is from the folks in marketing: JOYX3
Sections: F10 5 Series | In the Press | Sales/Marketing Jun 23rd, 2010 1 Comment 
Apparently we are not the only people on the planet to think the new 5er is phenomenal. Bloomberg is reporting that the newly redesigned 5 is sold out in all markets and future customers may be looking at a 3 to 4 month wait for one. The 2011 5 recently went on sale in the US but has been parading across the EU since March with the vast majority of automotive journalists raving about it. Needless to say, such demand is great for BMWs bottom line and reaching the modest goal of increasing sales targets from 1.29 million sales in 2009 to 1.3 million this year.
“The 5-Series is at the core of the BMW brand and we knew it was going to be a very strong vehicle for us,” Ian Robertson, BMW’s sales chief, said today in an interview at an industry conference in Bilbao, Spain. “In the U.S., where it’s doing very well, it could come to between 15 percent and 17 percent of our business as we ramp up.”
Sections: F10 5 Series | F11 5 Series Wagon | Spy photos Jun 23rd, 2010 2 Comments In traditional M Sport manner BMW will be launching a visual upgrade sans any performance bump for the 5 Series this coming October. The kit provides a more sport oriented look to the 5er, dare we say aggressive? While we will not see the fantastic F11 wagon stateside thanks to US consumers not having enough sense to buy the previous generation at sustainable numbers we can expect the nearly identical M Sport treatment of the sedan being gobbled up in copious quantities.
Photos: World Car Fans
Sections: //X6 M\\ | Video Jun 22nd, 2010 5 Comments We all know that the X6 ///M has a lot of power thanks to the 555hp twin-turbo V8 under the hood but it really is a vehicle that is greater than the sum of its visible parts. The engineering in the engine is astonishing as we learned here last year but the rest of the drivetrain is also exceptional as this video shows. BMW beefed up the drivetrain and invented the technology of cylinder deactivation between shifts to lessen the blow to the transmission, differential and all wheel drive system. Without the deactivation (which creates the strange sounding exhaust notes) the torque and overall dead weight of 5,000+lbs would break something before the massive tires would spin free.
The ///M engineers also spent a lot of time working on the shift algorithms in Sport Mode so that it would shift at the right time and do so with near the speed of a DCT. In my time with the engineers last year it was even noted that a driver can’t be as quick or as precise as the algorithms in most instances, just slap the stick to the left and let it do its job we were told- from my experience as a passenger with Bernd Limmer (Technical Designer and BMW test driver) there was no need to use the paddles.
We usually do not promote videos like that above as BMWs are not designed for drag racing but I found it great that such a large vehicle could move so quick and knowing all that went into designing the driveline package gave me a big smile as only BMW can.
Video: Youtube via BimmerPost
Copyright © 2002-2010 Gabriel Bridger
