Selected BMW topics:

June 24, 2009

             Formula 1 must change

This is a bad season for Formula 1 drivers of BMW Sauber, but also a dismal time for Ferrari, Mc Laren and Renault. We observe with amazement, when the World Champion (Hamilton) fights with two times World Champion (Alonso) just not to finish as the last in the race. Smaller teams made much faster cars and they win. The question arises if this surprising success is not the result of the constantly changing Formula 1 rules and moreover - bending the rules when it fits the organizers. It is a fact, that years ago Juan Pablo Montoya would have been the World Champion if not the questionable and immediate penalty he was given in the decisive race when the luck went his way . Today the manipulation is more subtle. Diffuser decision has been postponed and then obviously went in favor of the teams which used it. Amazingly Formula 1 boss Bernard  Ecclestone co-owns of one of these teams. We doubt that car makers like BMW, Renault or Ferrari are not able to build aerodynamically sound car. In fact BMW is leading the research in this field. What we doubt is the direction Formula 1 went for the past years.

June 3, 2009

             Stranger than Paradise - Official Photographs of the Masked Car

Better the cars BMW produces, stranger their publicity methods. Recently BMW released official spy photos of the new BMW X1 car. The prototype has been already shown in Paris, although in color of gold and only for one day, but it seemed fine to us. Now BMW released the Official Spy Photographs of X1 which show almost nothing. Is the change in car's body so big that we have to forget the car we did already see and liked less than a year ago? There are more BMW cars in testing with shower curtains glued to their bodies. There is a short film showing the 2011 6-series looking like an old grandma bed on wheels. Somebody who invented this way of showing new cars knows nothing about the importance of emotions in selling cars. Chris Bangle phone home!

April 28, 2009

             The Facts

In the last Formula 1 Grand Prix in Bahrain both BMW's did not qualify in the first 10 on the grid. Kubica's car repeatedly went on fire in the pits. Fire extinguished and off he goes. Both cars were ca. 1 second slower than competitors on one lap. It is easy to calculate that this will give a minute difference to the leaders during the race, almost the whole lap, not counting the traffic. Then before the race, hoping for a safety car, they both got hard tires and a lot of fuel which made them even slower, in fact they became the slowest cars on the track. Then just after the start Heidfeld ran over Kubica damaging both cars. The team did not have at first  the new front nose for Kubica (they had to make them, or forgot in the hotel's lobby?). Robert Kubica had to slowly cruise around for two laps. When both cars noses were changed, because Heidfeld's car was also damaged in their collision, they came back on the track. They were fighting with Nakajima not to finish as the last ones - they both failed. Kubica's cars was clearly slower than Nakajima's. Heidfeld finished the race as the last, Kubica just in front of him. A year ago, in 2008 GP  Kubica has been on pole in Bahrain, and he finished third, Heidfeld finished fourth.

April 25, 2009

             Over the top

As in every crisis, also in the present world economic crisis there is an element of change. The question is only if what will come will be reasonable or - strongly biased by ideology and therefore from the beginning having elements of another crisis still to come. The anti-car policy of many European countries, where through taxation instruments sales of the new cars were stimulated, while at the same time owning and especially using cars taxed beyond any reasonable level, contributed to the present activity downturn. It has been proven that at some moment higher taxation will bring less money, because it will slow down the economical activity which has been taxed (so called Laffer curve). People know what owning of a car means and how much it costs. Years of intense anti-car propaganda and heavy taxation gave the present situation. Human civilization as we know it needs car. Car is a basic communication mean but also an important stimulant to individual activity. Taxing car use beyond reason is one of the causes of the present crisis. Stimulating sales by a quickly dispensed premium will not do the trick. People know what is waiting for them later: taxation of fuel (up to 70% of its real price), taxation of insurance, taxation of road use, taxation of parking possibilities, high taxation for minor road and parking offences. I propose similar taxation for watching TV. Limits of watching hours, strong policing and fines, eye doctors and teachers on top government positions, high tax for owning more than one TV set, high tax on TV's which use more energy (bad for the environment), counter of watching hours on each TV. Absurd? May be, but far less damaging for the economy.

April 18, 2009

             Disappointing beginning for BMW Sauer

A really disappointing start of the F1 season for BMW Sauber: unreliable and slow car with seemingly not enough downforce, wrong team decisions during the race, dramatically weak performance in all possible aspects. At the same time previously weaker teams make progress, new team led by Ross Brawn is a revelation, Renault is returning to the narrow competition with Alonso. The damage has not been big because of the Heidfeld's second place in the unfinished GP of Malaysia. Mario Theissen will probably ask again BMW fans for patience. Well - we write these words just hours before the China Grand Prix. For the first time since Robert Kubica joined the team none of the two BMW Sauber cars did not qualify into the top ten. Is there really no way for the team to improve the car? How long this might take? Years? Decades? We shall keep our fingers crossed.

April 12, 2009

             No premium for premium cars

Governments of several countries in Europe have recently introduced financial schemes to help the automotive industry survive the present economical crisis by stimulating new car sales. Different measures have been introduced in different countries. In the UK there is talk of the premium for scrapping your car. You would receive from the government 2000 pounds premium for scrapping your old car. So if you have bought a badly made, awful car which now nobody wants, you will receive a nice premium for getting rid of it. However, if you bought a car which makes sense, which lasts at least 10 years without any bigger problem as most of BMW's do, a car which even after 15 years represents a resale value - you will not receive any premium. Well, the premium will remove some very old beautiful BMW cars from the market, but not many of them. These and the other government measures are intended to help the car industry without helping the rich. Indirectly, these new rules are supporting a production of junk cars. On a longer term they move us deeper into the crisis, which was partly created by the excess production of low quality goods nobody wants.

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What is cooking? Selected news topics about the BMW automobiles; cultural and economic impact of the BMW cars on our life and about the other BMW brands, as Mini and Rolls-Royce and ... trivia.

For the past eighty years, BMW made many fantastic cars.  Here is a list of all BMW models and the years they have been produced.

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