17.12.2008 POST DATE

Please inform me via email.
Sam

btw the porsche cayenne Turbo S is a Kickass performer

I believe the 3,000+ Mustang variants was a result of playing it safe. And the new one is no different. It’s the same looking thing. If they wanted Mustang to be what it once was, they shouldn’t have looked to the past, but to the future. And that’s what BMW does great. Sure it takes us longer to get to terms with it, but soon everybody follows.

Look at all the car companies that didn’t ’sell their soul’ for profits, they don’t exist anymore (or at least are owned by some foreign investors). The secret is balance. Porshe got it right, BMW got it right, to name just a few. All British makers got it wrong, most American companies got it wrong.

I think we should lay off with the soul selling allegations and be thankfull there are still companies that build great cars while making a profit. The purist might never like it, but at least we might never see an Indian owner taking the reigns.

Yeah and Porsche sold it’s soul to be the most profitable car company in the world. That tells me one thing: their focus is profits not performance cars. When, in the history of the car industry, has focusing on profits not come back to bite a manufacturer in the ass? Look at Ford with it’s 3,000 variations of the Mustang – trying to find new ways to keep sales up by producing assinine products.

550hp from a Twin Turbo V8 is pretty good, I did like the idea of a Twin Turbo V10 more though…. give the V10 a decent send-off before the V10 E60/E63’s disappear.

I’m not stunned about the idea of M SAV’s & SAC’s, but as long as it does out perform it’s rivals in terms of driving dynamics then it still holds the tradition of M, even if not the traditional philosophy and engineering… a 5000lb 4WD Turbo M car… ’tis indeed a strange new world!

Porsche did the same with the cayenne and see how that turn out
I think it will be the same with the X5M and the X6M

I’m sure in market-ready guise this vehicle will be fast. However, aren’t test mules typically tuned much higher in terms of HP and torque than the production models have? Wasn’t the E60 M5 tuned to something like 550 to 600HP before being reeled back to 507HP for the production cars?