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      10-19-2013, 09:03 AM   #4
Vervain
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Quote:
Originally Posted by diesel20 View Post
I'm no photographer but I took a few shots of the BMW stand. Managed to not take a single photo of the 4 series, or the M5 in Frozen Estoril blue!! But did get to sit in the i8 which was a privileged afforded to those there on the press/preview day. I fortunately managed to get preview tickets as I'm not part of the media.

Anyway a few snapshots, nothing special.

The i8 Has a very high door sill and low seats making it very difficult to get in and out.

The interior holds no surprises and is a combination of cheap looking materials (presumably light) and parts that come from the generic bmw parts bin. You would think they'd use the ceramic idrive/gear lever/climate control knobs off the top end bmws, not the cheaper stuff, surely they can't be any heavier? I can go on for a car that is coming in price wise at R8 V10 or 991 Turbo levels.

Interior roof lining is 1 series quality, unimpressive fabric seats and useless rear seats and a tiny boot at the rear. Just not good packaging. Even the naked carbon fibre work seems very poor.

Even if I could get my head around buying a car with such a the revolutionary drivetrain, I would struggle to justify paying its price tag for that quality.


Below is a pic of the door of the i3. That material is apparently "hemp" and environmentally friendly, but feels like that rough fibre glass type material you'll find lurking around the spare wheel well in a budget car.

The car on show didn't even have a multi function steering wheel!

Like the i8, I simply couldn't see myself paying 1 series money (or more) for a car that is finished to such a poor perceived standard of quality an entry level micro hatch would be embarrassed to try pull it off. Regardless of how much of a bunny hugger I am and environmentally friendly it is, I think these cars just require too much of a paradigm shift on so many levels of buyer expectations.



The rest:




New X5 is magnificent. The interior has taken a big step up in quality and the overall package has just been polished to make it a convincing evolution of the outgoing X5, already a very good car.

The new touch sensitive idrive controller works exactly like it should. Big improvement when entering letters, otherwise the software looks pretty much identical.

however, I'm left handed, would be interesting to hear how a right handed person finds it in a RHD car as was presumably originally designed for a LHD car and right handed person. As you can see the "B" I was drawing wasn't turning into a work of art despite my left handed advantage, but the car identified it straight away.
Thanks for the pictures! I really wish I would've gone..

The interior layout of the i8 looks great but I'm disappointed in the poor quality as you have mentioned. The car is stunning on its own though. That i3 picture of the door looks bad for such an expensive car too.

The X4 is beautiful and we can only hope that it looks similar to that when it debuts. I'm still not completely convinced with th X5. I will have to see it in person to decide. The interior looks very sumptuous though.

Wow, I can't believe that you don't like that 1 series M-performance aero kit and black taillights. From that picture, it looks amazing!
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