Archive for BMW

After launching a twin pair of turbocharge M SUVs with automatic transmissions, BMW M has gone back to its roots with a new car called the BMW M3 GTS, which it says has pure M genes. The specs list certain looks pretty drool-worthy, the kind that gets you excited even thinking about it.

See, the M3 is a fast car. It’s a really, really fast car, especially once the high-revving V8 gets up to its prime revolutions, you get kicked back into your seat quite violently and the engine screams along to extract a peak of 414hp from its 4.0 liters of capacity. But that’s not enough for the GTS – BMW has upped the displacement from 4.0 liters to 4.4 liters, so the engine makes 450 horses now, mated to a 7-speed M DCT twin clutch transmission with remapped transmission logic.

BMW has dropped some weight here and there from various parts of the car, including the use of lighter seats, a titanium rear silencer, removal of the air conditioning system (like the E46 M3 CSL), etc. BMW has also added rollover protection mounts at the B-column, a fire extinguisher, and a battery master emergency shut-off switch which shows the car’s true race intentions, as if the large rear wing wasn’t enough.

The large wing is functional, as is the adjustable front splitter. While the car is moving, the pressure which builds up in front of the vehicle above the panel of the front splitter which is parallel to the ground is much greater than in the free stream of air below it. This creates downforce.

No doubt many were disappointed when BMW announced they were not going to make a new CSL but they certainly made up for it with this new GTS. The price of the M3 GTS is expected to be 115,000 Euros in Germany, including 19% VAT. The cars will be built to order and the first will roll out in May 2010. It will initially only be available in Germany but other countries will be possible from summer 2010 onwards.

Click here to read the rest of New BMW M3 GTS with larger 4.4L V8

BMW has released a new BMW TV app for the iPhone and the iPod Touch. It’s available free at the iPhone store. Basically you can view BMW TV videos from the app, but it’s not like you couldn’t do that already via the iPhone/iPod Touch’s YouTube app and the BMW YouTube Channel. Watch a video about the app after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of BMW TV now available at the App Store

A production company by name of Bandito Garage has released a new 2 minute 20 second-long promotional footage of the BMW M3 Coupe titled “Living in the Lights”. The video was shot in Los Angeles and is centered around the M3 Coupe giving a gorgeous lady the ride of her life.

The production crew shot about 15 different angles and used high-tech equipment like state of the art camera cars and gyro stabilized Pursuit Cranes.

Continue reading to watch the awesome video.

Click here to read the rest of Awesome promo footage of the BMW M3 Coupe

The MINI brand’s advertising quite often never features an actual MINI at all, as with this latest promotional clip featuring the difference of what MINI claims as ‘MINI drivers’ and ‘non-MINI drivers’. “MINI drivers can be recognized by the mixture of lust for life, individuality and spontaneity. No matter what, they do not take themselves and their life too serious. We simply call it the MINI attitude” – the exact words BMW used to describe MINI drivers. Do you agree with that?

Whether you do or not, enjoy the clip after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of VIDEO: MINI Driver vs non-MINI Driver

Click for enlarged high resolution image

The latest installment in the 5-Series sedan range must be very very near to launch as the test units that have been going around European roads are slowly losing their camo, perhaps in a way to tease the public about its impending launch.

The new 5-Series Gran Turismo that had already been launched can probably give us a preview of the design language that the new 5 will carry, but we can see here that there are some obvious differences between the GT model and the regular sedan.

Click for enlarged high resolution image

The bumper looks completely different with the air intake area that’s designed to look more level in terms of height as it spans from the left to right of the bumper. The kidney grilles also have a slightly different shape, and so do the headlamps which are wider and do not point upwards at the edges like the 5-Series GT’s headlamps, helping the car look wider.

Click for enlarged high resolution image

There is more camoflage on the rear though, but we can sort of judge that the rear looks like an evolution of the outgoing E60 model, with new tail lamp designs with the cool organic lightbars that the F01/F02 7-Series have.

Look after the jump for a gallery of 5 spyshots snapped on European roads.

Click here to read the rest of F10 BMW 5-Series spyshot snapped conveniently next to a 5-Series GT for comparison

BMW is currently working on new technologies to better manage heat released from its vehicles. By improving heat management, fuel consumption and CO2 emissions can be reduced. Even a very fuel efficient engine can only convert about one-third of the energy contained in fuel to actually propel a car.

The rest is lost as waste heat via the car’s exhaust and radiator. To be more specific the auto maker is working on three systems including technologies to eliminate cold starts, convert heat from a car’s exhaust into electricity and use waste heat for interior heating.

To eliminate cold starts, BMW is working on improving heat insulation of engines (pictured below) that can help prevent them from cooling down quickly and retain as much residual heat as possible for the next start. With the technology that is being developed, the engine will take longer to cool down and even after 12 hours, engine temperature can still be figured at about 40 degrees Celsius.

BMW claims that each degree Celsius above the ambient temperature can help reduce fuel consumption by 0.2%. To help achieve better heating, a vehicle will be surrounded by fully clad walls and panels using materials that are normally used in the car’s underfloor for insulation.

Heat can also be converted into electric power. The automaker says that between 3 and 8% of the total fuel consumed by modern cars is due to the rising number of electricity-dependent features. BMW is testing a component called a thermoelectric generator (pictured below).

This generator uses the effect of the temperature gradient in thermoelectric semi-conductor elements generating electrical voltage (the Seebeck Effect). The bigger the difference in temperature, the higher the voltage generated. Exhaust gas temperatures, which are usually between 300 and 900 degrees Celsius, are on the hot side of the generator, and engine coolant is used for the cold side.

Basically up to 250 W of energy can be produced by integrating the component with the exhaust gas recirculation cooler. 250 W equals to about half the on-board electricity consumption in a BMW 5 Series. This can help reduce fuel consumption and CO2 emissions by up to 2%.

The final technology of the heat management idea is an exhaust gas heat exchanger. This system can be placed close to the catalytic converter and it can convey heat to other components or areas like the interior. It can replace the need for electrical heating modules which consume additional fuel (by about 1 liter per 100 kilometers).

Furthermore, the feature can also be used to help warm up components like the transmission (example, oil in the automatic transmission). The above mentioned technologies are in testing stages hence it can take years before we can actually see them in production cars.

BMW has just made available two mobile phone hands-free Bluetooth headsets – one with a BMW design and one with a MINI design. The headsets are aimed at those who own BMW or MINI cars that did not come with Bluetooth handsfree systems from the factory. In Malaysia, it’s safe to say that all iDrive-equipped BMWs have Bluetooth handsfree systems installed.

The Bluetooth headset by BMW weighs 8 grams and the rechargeable battery offers a talktime of 5 hours and a standby time of 7 days. You can charge them via a charger that you hook up to your car’s cigarette lighter. It can be paired and used with two different mobile phones at the same time.

The BMW X1 has not even been launched here yet but AC Schnitzer has already released these photos of the X1 fitted with their alloy wheel designs. A full-on bodykit has yet to be developed, but that will come pretty soon.

A first half of 2010 launch is expected for the X1 here in Malaysia. In line with BMW’s new EfficientDynamics gameplan internationally and recently in Malaysia, you can expect at least one turbodiesel model to be launched.

BMW has no competitor for the RS4 Avant as yet. I know there are customers out there that would definitely like an M3 Touring but I guess it’s just not enough for BMW. If you pick up copies of BMW Magazine or Performance BMW from the newstands you can sometimes see E46 Tourings turned into makeshift M3s. Each of the other 3-Series bodies have already received its M3 – the E90, E92, and the E93, but at least the E91 has a 335i, which can be chipped into an M3 contender.

Another option would be to get one of these babies – an “M3 Estate” custom-built from an E91 by Manhart Racing. It’s not exactly an M3 with a touring tail – the engine and transmission package in the engine bay is completely different as well and comes from the ‘older’ E60 M5. This means a big 5.0 liter high-revving V10 putting out 550 PS and BMW’s 7-speed single clutch SMG transmission. It’s already been pre-tuned with various bits and pieces from factory – a stainless steel quad-pipe exhaust, 200-cell racing catalysts, 6-pot front/4-pot rear Stoptech brakes, Bilstein PSS10 coilover suspension, etc.

The rear end of the car is typical E91 wagon (in these photos it is the pre-facelift version) but at the front, the whole unappealing pre-facelift E90 front-end has been replaced by the E92 coupe look, which is the same thing that BMW did with the E90 M3 Sedan anyway. You can buy one for €120,000, and of course converting your existing E91 is cheaper. But at the same time, an M5 Touring only costs under €100,000.

Click here to read the rest of Fancy a compact BMW wagon with a V10?

BMW has upgraded its heads-up display technology to have full-colour images instead of a simple red, orange, yellow and green system before this. This especially enhances the use of the HUD for GPS navigation purposes. Not something you’d probably care about but BMW claims the latest version of their display now only requires less than 10 LEDs to function, when older models of the system required over 100 of them. LEDs are energy efficient to begin with but this is one of BMW’s obsession with reducing power consumption (from 13 to 7 watt) in action, or is it to save cost on buying LEDs?