Quote:
Originally Posted by Dog Face Pony Soldier
I believe BMW builds a good vehicle... there's even a chance I actually buy an M340i or M550i this year, but I have to admit I'm no longer a "fan" of the brand. For example I wouldn't buy any clothing or accessories with a BMW logo because I no longer find the brand's identity attractive. I even canceled my BMW CCA account after decades of membership.
This isn't sustainable BMW.
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Agree 100%. I know this probably won't be well received here, but I want to share my story as a former BMW
fanatic who still has a flag with the BMW roundel of yore pinned up in my garage. You know...the one over there <<<
I'm 40 years old (nearly 41), and buy and sell cars more often than good sense would allow, whose first passion for cars was with BMW.
I came from a family without means - mother a parochial school teacher, father in insurance - though both extremely thrifty and savvy with money. My father never gave a hoot for cars, but we had a neighbor that was a BMW fan, and probably germinated the seed of my initial BMW mania. He had a E30 325i that he was constantly wrenching on in his garage. In a household with nothing but cheap domestic cars (one of which was a company car - my father's Chevy Corsica), the neighbor's mount was something mysterious and - quite literally - foreign. Growing up, I watched as BMW took title after title in various racing circles, eager to drive one myself one day. After graduating from college in 2002 and taking a job in the DC area, I found my coveted BMW still out of reach and settled for a used 2000 Audi S4. New to the northern VA area, I made friends with the local BMW club, and was soon rubbing elbows with a bunch of young fellows that had taken HELOCs on their pre-housing bubble Loudon County condos, unwisely purchasing new E46 M3s with the substantial proceeds (ouch!) Country drive after country drive, I always showed up with my inferior Audi mount, wanting to be a true member of that club.
Eventually, good fortune allowed me to follow my dream and buy a used 2004 stripper E46 M3 with SMG2 transmission. It was Alpine White with M Alcantara seats (a very rare option!) and few options to keep the weight down. The owner was a rich fellow selling for basically wholesale price, and I flew to Tennessee to pick it up. It was my unicorn, and it was finally mine. Life was good.
Afterward, I owned many BMWs: a 2003 E46 330i ZHP, a 2005 E46 M3 Dinan S2, a 1998 E36 M3 Coupe completely track prepped with more mods than I can count, a 2009 E92 335i (European delivery from the Welt), 2009 E90 M3 sedan, a 2011 135i with more mods and BMW performance parts than you can shake a stick at, and (with kids) a 2013 BMW X5 35i.
I can still tell you how to index a VANOS spline gear into the head cam of an E36 courtesy of my money shifting mishap with my E36 at VIR, after which I had to rebuild the entire head. Whether it was installing aftermarket suspension bits or just adding minimalist cosmetics, I've spent my share of dollars modding and working on BMWs.
In the mid-late 2010s, I reached an odd place. The E90/92 M3 felt gutless on the street since I had to wind it out so far to make power, and the F80 that was coming was out of my price range.
Seeing many advantages, I switched to a 2013 Audi S4 in 2015, and loved it. It had the same all-rounded street car appeal that BMW used to have: fantastic torque, great interior, nimble, fantastic sound system, practical... But eventually I replaced it with a 2018 Audi S5 in fall of 2017. This car was fantastic visually and from an interior perspective, but the engine lacked character, and the transmission was one of the worst I'd ever driven.
Then it's 2019, and I'm seeing a car manufacturer offering a car with 90% of the luxury features that I have in my current car, solid looks, the ability to drive itself (eventually), and a
3.2 second 0-60 time for $65k! It almost seemed too good to be true. Soon enough I went to test drive one, and found they only had a lesser (non-performance) version available for drive. Well, even THAT one just about knocked my socks off from a dead stop. I'm sure you can guess by now I'm talking about the Tesla Model 3, and I'm now driving the Long Range variant. The EV torque was just something that I'd never experienced; the closest I could come to describing the sensation of the near-constant acceleration was of a plane in take-off. I bit into the hype that is electric vehicles with a 2019 Tesla Model 3 Performance, putting an order on one that day.
Shortly after the Tesla quarterly earnings call a few weeks ago that opened the door for orders to a refreshed Model S, I placed an order for a 2021 Model S. With 3 kids, it'll be a good switch for the family with the extra cargo space and breathing room in the back. And in a post-COVID world, the reality is that I don't drive the back roads to work as much, so highway driving is a larger part of my usage.
You might ask why I no longer crave that visceral feel of rowing gears, and the feedback of the tires in the wheel, struggling to grip the pavement when I'm dropping into and fighting the carousel at Summit Point main. It's not that I
don't, but I'll be the first to admit that my priorities with young kids and a job that dominates my time have changed from what they once were. I don't go to the track 5-7 times a year like I used to (this WILL change eventually), and 70% of my driving is taking the family to the vacation home.
Soon after I put down the money for the new S, however, it occurred to me that I'd never spent near this much on a new car. What else could I afford if I were willing to drop this kind of coin? I looked a BMW, Audi, and Porsche, and though the prospects were enticing in some ways (particularly with how finely crafted the interiors were), ultimately, they seemed unsatisfying. Even a well-optioned S7 or loaded M3 (I'm sorry, but those looks!) were no contest for the speed, feature set, and overall aesthetic of the new Model S (my neighbor owns a '20 Model S and I've driven it several times, so I'm pretty familiar with the platform). Honestly, and I realize this is purely subjective, seeing the color options on the new M3 just made me realize how little I know of what BMW has become. There must have been a dozen options for interior seating colors, and all but one of them looked so bizarre it made me wonder what the hell the designers were thinking to make them anything but Individual options.
Add to this the growing ability of Tesla to offload more driving functions to the car when you need to (yes,
full self driving it's still years away, in reality, but it's still a very useful feature as it currently stands), and I just can't see buying a car from my former go-to brands unless there are some serious changes made.
To be honest, if I were to buy an ICE at all, it'd probably be to replace the minty fresh 2004 Honda S2000 I sold back in 2015. This, ultimately, is how I see ICE surviving - pursuing its purist roots. In 5-10 years EVs will be a MASSIVE segment of the marketplace. They're cheaper (and more importantly, easier) to maintain and fuel, and ranges are getting to the point where range anxiety will be a thing of the past for everyone but folks in Wyoming. ICE, ultimately, will not be able to compete for the mainstream car segment, or frankly, anything even peripheral to it - as BMW has often done with its sport sedans.
ICE should be going in the opposite direction - don't make MORE features, make less. Lighten cars. Bring back manual transmissions. Eliminate gadgets. Make them fun to drive again. Give drivers a reason to care that a car is about more than how easily you can make it go stupidly fast; because I gotta be honest, EVs have already NAILED that, and their lead will only widen in the future.
Just my 2c.