Yesterday I spent a few hours looking at some European car related websites and mainly paying attention to the European automaker. In my life I had the opportunity to drive a few cars available only in Europe. One of the first ones I drove was the Open Rekord Sport edition, it belonged to an Opel engineer that modded the hack of that car. Fast, sporty and quite good looking for that time.

Then I moved onto to another Opel model, the quite popular Vectra, which was one of their top cars back then. Once again, fast, better handling and reasonable priced. After this, I went a few steps down and drove for a bit a Fiat Punto. I know, I know, a little tiny car, but fun to drive in busy cities. And without getting in more details, I will just enumerate the other European cars I managed to drive: Renault Laguna, Renault Megane, Daewoo, Ford Escort, Audi A4, Peugeot 206 and 306, VW Golf 4 diesel. There are probably a few more, but I simply can't remember all of them. But one of them remained in my heart: Alfa Romeo 156. 

If you recall, last week we announced that BMW will be supporting the U.S launch of Alfa Romeo's models in 2010. In the mean time, I will share with you the two cars that I would absolutely love to import here if possible.

Opel Insignia

Here is a nice review on it from our friends at Autoblog

Alfa Romeo 159

Autoblog review

Remember, I'm trying to stay within reasonable limits and "ignore" the exotic expensive European cars.

So, I shared my ideal European car with you, now, let's hear about your favorite one. Feel free to leave a comment with links to photos and I will update the article with your name and your preference.

Today, those of us living in the United States honor the people who have given their lives while serving in the military.

BMWBlog would like to wish you a safe and fun Memorial Day.

God Bless Us All!

G-power is an amazing German tuner. Check out first their work on the BMW M5. If your M6 is boring and slow which btw, it shouldn't be, G-power has an amazing upgrade, they will boost your 507hp V10 M6 to a whooping 635hp. Yes, I said 635hp! That is just amazing, They say 0-60 is 4.6 which I find just bogus considering a stock M6 goes 0-60 in low-mid 4's and add 128hp, it should be a lot faster.

Enjoy!- Click on continue reading below for full image gallery.

Article By CARversation.com 

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At least that's what some specialists believe. The general opinion is that if oil prices rise to $200 like some analysts believe [they] could, gas prices would reach about $7 per gallon. 

On Wednesday, a new record has been set, a $134 barrel. The rise in the oil price has been attributed to worries about supply and the predictions are quite pessimistic. Goldman Sachs believes that a barrel could fetch $200 by 2010, but that statement was issues two weeks ago. Many specialists now believe that a $200 barrel price might come even sooner and it will be somewhat expected.

Others advise that the oil market is very unstable and once the summer passes, we might see a small drop in the gas prices.

Since some of the BMWBlog folks live in the Chicagoland area, for the past week, we have seen some incredible high gas prices that just a few years ago, we thought they would be atrocious. A premium gallon of gasoline was selling for $4.65 at gas stations near Downtown Chicago. 

As we mentioned a few days ago, we truly hope that all the car manufacturers will invest more money in their R&D department and come up with some more efficient engines. We know that BMW is actively working on improving their EfficientDynamics technology (Video: What is BMW Efficient Dynamics?) and we will definitely see the technology being implemented in the BMWs sold in the U.S.

So, what do you people think? Will we reach a $7 per gallon by the end of next year? If I were to guess, I would say that in the large metro areas, we will see a $5/gallon premium gas by the end of this year.

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Some of BMWBlog's little revenue comes from the following direct advertisers and we would like to thank them again with this occasion. If you are interested in advertising on BMWBlog please visit your advertising page for more information.

First, I would like to thank Alex Dytko who will be with us for the rest of the year. Alex is a Client Advisor at  BMW of Peabody, MA. For over nine years, he has been providing thousands of BMW of Peabody clients with excellent and professional service. If you're interested in New, Certified Pre-Owned or premium used car or simply have a general question, feel free to reach out to him, Dytko.net

Our second sponsor, it's based out of Munich, Germany and provides winter tire rental services to BMW European Delivery customers. EDWINTERTIRES.COM gives you the opportunity to enjoy a safer vacation by having replacement alloy wheels, already fitted with Run-Flat Winter tires suitable for your vehicle type, fitted to your car in minutes.

Once again, thank you for your support.

I just wanted to share these two photos with you. The BMW M1 Hommage looks amazing, especially with the BMW Welt behind it. That's all, carry on

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eBay, the land of opportunities. Yesterday, our friends at Automotiveaddicts.com posted an article on an older edition Batmobile being offered for sale on eBay. The Batmobile was used on the Batman movie filmed in 1989. Starting price, sit tight on your chair: $500,000.

The listing seems to have been removed from eBay and I wasn't able to find out the reason behind that.

[Source: AutomotiveAddicts ] 

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The guys at Jalopnik are quite funny. They found a cool blog article on a Chinese website. Chinacartimes.com received some photos of a Shuang Huan SCEO, a chinese replica of BMW's X5.

The SCEO was already very similar to BMW's design, but look what happens if you add the BMW roundel and the famous bimmer kidney grille.

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I hope you guys enjoy this. Here at BMW Blog we are always trying to think of new ways to be innovative and entertaining. The BMW Blog team, which includes myself as well, decided that it would be a cool idea if you, the viewers, could actually receive some of BMW’s latest and greatest news via video. Of course, my handsome face and figure was the ideal candidate for the videos. Some of the things that you guys will see in the videos that I may, roughly every week or so, are not just to do with BMW news, but also BMW car tips, commentary and even formal debates over different relevant topics. Always remember, I will post the respective links to every article I talk about right under the video, so that you can read along in a separate tab, read it later, or pause the video and read it first.

So, without further ado, I give you… well, me!

Videos were recorded April 17, 2008.

BMW Blog News

BMW Twin-Turbo 4/Quad-Turbo 4

BMW 1/3 tii

Dinan BMW 135i

2009 BMW Z4 Hardtop/Softtop

BMW To Increase U.S. Based Suppliers

Pontiac G8 GT or BMW 5er?

Hans G. Lehmann

BMW Blog News 2

BMW MyInfo

BMW Car Clubs

BMW Blog Car Buying Tip

Article by Josh from RawAutos.com

 BMW has officially pulled the covers off of its S 1000 RR race bike, which will have a production model next year. BMW is building 1,000 units of the new model next year. Featuring a 1000cc inline-four transversely mounted between the frame rails and an upside-down front fork, the RR is rather conventional by BMW standards. So far, no specifications have been given regarding power levels. BMW plans to crack the top ten next year in World Superbike racing and is expecting podium finishes the following year. This is a great start considering Japanese Motor companies have decades of head start to BMW, good idea to set reachable goals now.[Source: Auto Blog]

Article By CARversation.com 

With all of the great news happening for BMW and its enthusiasts, there was today a piece of bad news for the BMW spy photography world. Hans G. Lehmann, one of the world’s most renowned and recognized figures in the automotive world, has announced his retirement. After decades of showing off his pictures of new camouflaged cars –the reason for car camo is undoubtedly due to Lehmann’s uncovering pictures- to magazines and enthusiasts alike, he is heading off into that photographer retirement place, possibly called home, a place he probably hasn’t seen a lot in his years.

If you have ever seen spy shots from Germany’s Nürburgring, they are most likely Hans’s pictures you were looking at. Over the years he has photographed pretty much every BMW spy shot I think I have ever seen. You will always see the "copyright: Hans G. Lehmann" tag on the photo. He recently did an interview with Auto Motto in which he talks about the years of grueling work he has done. He has battled the cold, heat and the car companies at numerous times during his career. He has been threatened, beaten, arrested, among other things. All of this over some pictures that we the people want of our beloved new cars.

Good luck with retirement Hans. You will be missed. Anyone else want to take that crazy job? I certainly don’t.

Article by Josh from RawAutos.com

Source: Autoblog

This is a really cool video, I thought that even hardcore BMW enthusiasts would enjoy it.

I just love the new signature headlights Audi has on its new models and I never thought I would say this, but I find it better than BMW's halo/xenon headlights.

Watch that R8 drifting, this is truly an amazing car.

Article By CARversation.com 

As a BMW fan I read every publication about BMW’s to try and keep up with the tuner world, enthusiast world and more importantly the BMW world itself. I was just sitting down thinking about one article in particular that I read the other day in Total BMW, a British publication, in which they talk about buying an E39 M5 and an E46 M3 for 10,000 British pounds, which equals to about $20,000. While twenty grand can still be perceived by some as to being expensive for a used BMW, it really isn’t much for cars that still to this day perform better than the average performance car for that amount of money. Remember that the E46 M3 and E39 M5 could both churn out 4.7s 0-60’s when new, and with a little love and care I’m sure the new owner would have little problems achieving good numbers like this.

I feel as though we the American BMW enthusiasts are getting jipped on this one. I personally would love to find a nicely used older M3 or M5 for that money. Instead all I find are good cars that are in the $35,000-$50,000 range. According to Total BMW a nicely used E39 M5 and E46 M3 can be picked up for much cheaper in the UK and are still in good shape with few troubling running costs. Of course you would experience certain higher costs with tires and brakes do to the fact that you just purchased a high performance German car that was far more expensive when new. Always remember of course that you need to make sure this car is a good deal and have it checked out by a local BMW guru, or else you could be up a certain creak without that paddle we all know about.

Now you can still pick up a nicely used BMW E46 or E39 ///M in this country for $20,000 or more, but you really have to search to find the right one that has been taken care of. Remember these are ///M cars, and people in this country either dog them all to hell or track them abusively and don’t pay much attention to maintenance. It’s sad really. You just can’t always trust the automotive public in America.

I have been looking at different M3’s and M5’s for sale, and it seems that a lot of them aren’t well taken care of. While the mileages are in the 70-85,000 mark, which doesn’t really scare me, it’s how those miles have passed by and how the interiors don’t look so fresh. Most of the more inexpensive M3’s you’ll find are SMG cars, this isn’t a bad thing, but I personally would rather have a manual and it makes me wonder as to why the SMG is so cheap in comparison.

You can always go CPO BMW and pay the premium for a car that you know is worth the money because it has been checked over by BMW. A friend of mine bought a beautiful 2004 red M3 manual that was certified pre-owned and even had the ability to purchase the ///M warranty that covered all the finicky ///M parts as well. Within the first few weeks the fuel pump went out on the car along with the engine computer failing. No problem to the local Bimmer dealer. They took care of it all under the CPO and ///M factory warranty. Thousands of dollars spared because BMW fixed the issues that they in the first place didn’t expect to happen.

All I am saying here is don’t be afraid to buy an older BMW. If you like BMW go back a few years and drive the older ones, fix them up and keep them going. Sometimes they are actually the most fun. While it’s cool to drive the latest and greatest, a lot of times it’s the older cars that bring the most joy, especially if you are an enthusiast and like getting your hands a little dirty. Just be smart about what you buy. Check the car over, and try not to buy one that doesn’t have all of the records available to you. Most importantly, if it doesn’t look right to your eyes, it probably isn’t right. Trust your instincts.

Article by Josh from RawAutos.com

After seeing the latest BMW CS Concept photos from the New York Auto Show, I have decided to compile a photo gallery with some of the best shots of the CS Concept. The Concept CS made its first public appearance at the Shanghai Auto Show in 2007. The car, bigger than a 7 Series, is the next style benchmark for BMW.

I hope you will enjoy these great photos and if you would like to send more photos in, please feel free to contact us.

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If you have read our blog in the past couple of days, you might remember that BMW CS Concept made its official U.S debut at the New York International Auto Show.  We have not posted many photos at that time, but instead, we decided to offer you some footage. We came across a few videos on youtube and we thought we would share them with you.

There are still no news on whether BMW will call this concept the 8-series or they will just replace the 6-series with this new design. All I know at this point is that the interior looks top notch and I think, finally, BMW can compete to Mercedes-Benz when it comes to interior luxury. 

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