Now turn your hymnals, as the great man once said, to Number Four, and we’ll sing two choruses of Withering Contempt.
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Tag: BMW
Despite the failure of the BMW 5-Series GT, BMW is determined to capture the economies of scale of its rear-drive platform and shoot for unprecedented volume by cranking out even more ugly variants of its core models. Case in point, the 3-Series GT.
BMW will enter marketing history by bringing McDonalds to the automotive industry. Just like McD took one food platform as the basis of a panoply of products (Hamburger, Cheeseburger, Double Cheseburger, McDouble, Daily Double) BMW’s MINI perfects the art and science of mass customization. The latest iteration: The long awaited Mini Paceman, debuting for North America at the Los Angeles Auto Show. (Read More…)
The late Gore Vidal was fond of saying, “Gratitude can be a complicated thing.”
He was right. Whether you are a hater, or simply a chronic critic, the act of complimenting those who follow the beat of a different drummer is usually not within the tip of the human tongue.
We want things our way… and sometimes we’re just plain wrong.
The 2012 Los Angeles Auto Show is upon us, and as usual, TTAC will have photographers in the field, complete with live shots of all the new debuts, while we provide anger-tinged appraisals of all the new debuts. Press days don’t start for another couple of days, but we’ve got a rundown of what to expect after the jump.
For many of the brand’s faithful, a front-driver BMW is a revolting prospect. It’s the four-wheeled equivalent of tofu-based bacon or a cigarette without nicotine. But BMW is banking on small cars in a big way – their new front drive architecture, dubbed UKL, will underpin as many as 12 front-drive products from BMW and Mini. And frankly, not doing a front-drive range would be a display of poor judgement on the part of management.
Mention China to Daimler managers, and with a pained look, they will quickly change the subject. China is the superpower when it comes to conspicuous consumption, and even more conspicuous choices of cars, and horrors, Mercedes is lagging far behind Audi and BMW, brands that previously had been looked upon with disdain by Daimler managers. Daimler won’t take it anymore, and wants to put a board member in charge of its lagging China business, says Der Spiegel. It will be a demanding job. (Read More…)
An experiment conducted in London shows that the new MINI is the world’s strongest babe-magnet. This 2012 MINI attracted 28 very skinny and flexible ladies. (Read More…)
By way of one of its usual trademark flowery press releases, BMW says it is developing a new two-man bobsled for use by Team USA in the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games. (Read More…)
What do you get when you add two doors to a 6-Series coupé? Last year the answer was: a 7-Series. Of course that was last year, now BMW has an all-new answer: the Gran Coupe. Of course, calling your latest sexy sedan a “coupé” is nothing new (Mercedes has done it since 2004), what is new is the process by which this “coupé” arrived. Normally manufacturers introduce a new sedan, then within a year they delete two doors, lop off some trunk, give it a sporty grille and launch it as a coupé and convertible. The 6-Series Gran Coupe (GC) on the other hand is what happens when you take a an expensive coupé and add doors. In BMW speak, this process created a four-door coupé. Confused yet? Allow me to explain: apparently all you have to do to create a coupé is remove the sashes from the windows. (This means that Subaru buyers have driven coupés all these years and didn’t know it.) Can the sexy 6-Series beat Mercedes at their own CLS game? Let’s find out.
“Take BMW. In the near term, they will have nine entries in the compact segment. This is basically our heartland,” he told me on the sidelines of the Paris auto show. “With the brand reputation they have, you start to have a massive problem.”
-Gunnar Herrmann, Ford of Europe’s Vice President of Quality
Today, BMW confirmed what you could read here last week: The Bavarians will build a BMW factory in Brazil. BMW submitted an investment plan to the Brazilian government, BMW says. (Read More…)
With Brazil’s national auto policy finalized, BMW has decided to go ahead with plans for an assembly plant in the country.
Europe’s auto market implosion has led BMW to shift units earmarked for the continent over to the United States and China, where demand remains strong.
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