
I remember some time in the past, a group of friends and I were discussing about BMW and it’s turbodiesel technology. We were saying that while BMW has put alot of work into turbodiesels, it still would not have treated diesel technology at the same par as petrol engines until they put a turbodiesel into the Z4 and the 6-series.
Well, if insider news are to be taken seriously, then turbodiesel is now half-way there in BMW’s eyes. Together with the upcoming imminent facelift of the BMW 6-series, BMW is said to be launching a new variant to complement the existing 630i, 650i and M6 – a BMW 635d with the same award winning 3.0 litre twin turbocharged straight-six turbodiesel engine which made it’s world debut in the BMW 535d. With 272hp at 4,000rpm and 560Nm of torque from as low as 2,000rpm under the 535d’s hood, it pushes the mid-sized luxury sedan from 0-100km/h in 6.5 seconds, so expect similar performance statistics for the BMW 635d.

MINI’s previous Concept Frankfurt gave us an insight into the future of the MINI product range – currently comprising of the One, One D, Cooper, Cooper S and Cooper Convertible. You could say the Concept Frankfurt was a modern incarnation of the old school Mini Traveller, a way of BMW MINI telling us that it plans to develop a new station wagon MINI. However due to legal reasons, the new MINI station wagon will not be called the MINI Traveller, but instead a new name has been chosen: the MINI Clubman.
XinHua Finance (XFN Asia) says an industry source informed it that Volkswagen AG has signed an agreement to buy a substantial stake in the manufacturing arm of Malaysia’s Proton Holdings Bhd. The stake involved is the rumoured 51%, and an announcement is expected to be made on Feb 8. This syndicated news report caused Proton shares to surge 90 sen to close at a price of RM7.75, more than 13 percent higher. This proves to be an instant win for shareholders like the EPF which recently increased it’s stakeholding in the national car manufacturer.




