[1speedbike]

Originally Posted by jkoral

I almost started a thread about this very topic but figured I'd get flamed/thrashed/etc for even considering 135 => BRZ/FRS.

It has a LSD at least...

I love my car, love the way it handles, love the incredible power. But stock for stock, I might have a tough time deciding between the two based on fun-to-drive factor alone. Right now I know I love my car's handling mostly because of the upgrades I've given it. It was great before, but now it's amazing. From what I hear the FRS/BRZ handle amazingly right out of the lot. They're not FAST cars, but they're still definitely sports cars. BMWs as of late aren't sports cars, just sporty, luxurious, versatile cars. What was that saying? Jack of all trades, master of none.

[1speedbike]

Originally Posted by RPM90

most BMW enthusiasts will find ways to hate on it anyway, declaring how bland the interior is, and how much cheap plastic it has, and how few luxury items come standard, blah blah.

I remember when Motor Trend did that comparison between the Boss Mustang and the M3. They put out nearly identical performance numbers. The domestic fanboys were cheering that the Mustang not just kept up, but sometimes bested the M3 for $20K less. The BMW fan boys said "sit in one, then the other! It's a BMW!"

Honestly, both sides are right. The Mustang was cheaper, but felt cheaper. Doesn't feel the same to drive, not as communicative, comfortable, nice on the inside, upscale, etc. These aren't just my thoughts; I am a fan of mustangs and have asked around (I'm seriously interested!). I think one forum member I asked said the Boss felt crappier to drive and was very tail-happy, plus the obvious lack of luxury amenities. That's what the $20k gets you. The cars are both capable, but that money gets you the refinement and the ability to drive that car to work every day. Or, you can save the money and get something with a different mission that will (marginally) beat it on a track.

At least that's my take, which is the same thing I mentioned in the original post. BMW has become less of a "sports car"/motorsport company and more of a everything brand (sporty, luxurious, AND utilitarian).

The FRS/BRZ doesn't try to have a leather interior that Mr. Executive can take clients out to lunch in, and then carve up the roads going home that night. It doesn't have to, because it's half the price. But that price includes an LSD. Wahhhhh.

[ptack]

Yes, in retrospect some corporate decisions in the past have been great or terrible for consumers, but over time there is always a leveling between cost and demand. Detroit is still paying for decades of crap products with a generation of consumers who shun their cars. BMW has produced the occasional hit from the enthusiast's perspective (can you say 1Addict?) and we rightly worry that our luck will change and they will go Detroit on us since it's easier for a company to fail than to succeed.

[B-Dawg]

It gets a bit worse for diluting the //M brand:

http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/...c_first_drive/

[Judge]

What's all this talk about brand dilution?

[Dackelone]

Originally Posted by 1speedbike

It has a LSD at least...

The FRS/BRZ has an LSD as an OPTION! At least over here in Germany. I saw the Subbie version at the AMI car show in Leipzig in June. I was NOT impressed.

[Monterra]

Wow, don't know about electric grellow accents but that matte gray paint looks fantastic I think. They should offer it here I'd easily pay 500 extra for it...hell I paid 550 for my orange peel blue

[Monterra]

Originally Posted by B-Dawg

It gets a bit worse for diluting the //M brand:

http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/...c_first_drive/

Yeah this is the tweener half baked M performance model they're getting into. I actually don't have much of a problem with this application as it sounds like it does get significant upgrades over the base model (rather than just copious use (abuse?) of badging and a steering wheel, and if 3150 is correct which I know it isn't that would be sweet. Its 150 lbs. lighter than a 3545lb 335i sedan but we estimate weight at 3150- nice math. Seems like they're pricing it right 29,9 in the UK so that should translate into a somewhat modest premium over current 135i pricing here I would think. Hey its fairly simple, somewhat light and more customizable and livable than a true M car. Maybe it should just be the new 135i but the car itself sounds pretty damn good- at least when put up against other grossly overweight cars they've been rolling out. See BV, I can be positive even about a BMW.

[Ash83]

Originally Posted by KingOfJericho

A Porsche GT3 or Cup car is track ready... an Exige is track ready... Not one single current M car is really "Track Ready." It may be closer to being suitable for fun at the track, but truly track ready they are not.

+100000

But I can not afford 2 cars so having that hybrid makes more sense.. I will not race my car to compete so having fun on the track is good for 99% of the people.. if you want to race professionally then i guess you must afford 2 cars.

[Dackelone]

Originally Posted by Monterra

Wow, don't know about electric grellow accents but that matte gray paint looks fantastic I think. They should offer it here I'd easily pay 500 extra for it...hell I paid 550 for my orange peel blue

The matte gray paint job was a one off wrap job - only for the AMI car show. Also the leather seats were a "custom" one off too. Seemed weird that they would do that for a public show car. My guess is Subbie only had these two early cars in DE in time for the AMI show. The interior just reeked of cheap plastic smells.

[TMR013]

Posted this on the original thread:

"Wow! Sorry, this guy just sounds bitter that the world doesn't work exactly like he thinks it should. That article sounded like a spoiled child having a tantrum.
Simple facts, no mass producing car company in existence, super car makers don't count, is in business just to please the enthusiast. We are a niche, in most cases an afterthought. But not with BMW. I think they put more thought for the enthusiast in their product than anybody else out there. And if they want to make less expensive cars more sporty by incorporating M components, more power to them. We should be happy that they are trying all they can to encourage more enthusiasts. Not whine like a bunch of stuck up M crybabies."

I know I'm in the minority on this. But wishing for the "ol' times" will never make them come back. Car enthusiasm is dying, be greatful for what we can get and that we were not born in the next 20 years.

[ilikebmxbikes]

my friends are building a BRZ. They just took it on bullrun and will be turbo charging the car in the near future. I wouldn't trade my 135i for one, but you cant deny it is a good car and a good unexpected move for toyota to develop a car like that.

[Monterra]

Unexpected that Toyota would partner and design with developer Subaru on a car like that(hard bits on both are almost all Sub I believe.) But Toyota has churned out some nice enthusiast toys in the past just not in the last decade or so.

[TheSt|G]

Aside from the 1M, the M brand is pretty dead.

To the OP though, the Cayman has 14.5 cubic feet of trunk space, we only have 10. Arguably it can hold more groceries in the trunk.

[dmboone25]

Originally Posted by BrokenVert

So nobody cares that this isn't unprecedented? And that BMW has put M in front of a normal model designation before? They actually did it a lot in the 80s

I think the main reason it seems so worse toady is that there are many more BMW models available now...in the 80's you had the 3,5,7...now you have those in many more variants, plus the 1,Z4,X1,X3,X5,X6...with other models on the way...so it just seems like the ///M badges have multiplied and are all over the place...which by its very nature, dilutes what BMW motorsport once stood for.

I have a bone stock 135 and it has at least 5 ///M badges that i can think of off the top of my head. Do they add anything to the car, performance-wise? Of course not...

I am all for having a car that looks better than stock (better wheels, lower profile, sportier aspirations) but it seems like they could call it something else and leave ///M for the real deal.

Just my $.02

[Monterra]

What he said ^^^ and I'm still waiting on that list of 1980s normal models that were using the M badge- a) it definitely wasn't "a lot" and b) you couldn't go to the a dealer and pick up an M535i on this side of the pond- that I know of and c) Those cars were hotted up unlike a bone stock 135 that has half a dozen things to make you believe your car has descended from our legen-waitforit-dary racing heritage and you would surely kill it at any racetrack if you had the hankering. Reality: your car rolls and understeers like a bitch near its limit (unless you seriously addressed that on your own) and you'd likely get spanked all day by cars with maybe a little more than half as much power on tap.

[jkoral]

Originally Posted by B-Dawg

It gets a bit worse for diluting the //M brand:

http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/...c_first_drive/

Hey, it looks pretty good to me -- quoting from the conclusion:

"And yet, because this is M-lite and avoids M-car extravagances (no carbon roof, no sheetmetal mods, no M diff, no DCT), it's a bargain. In Europe the price is just three-fourths of what BMW asked for the old 1 Series M.

We ended the day wondering about the M Performance mission. The company says it's about being partway to an M, but to us it was a whole lot better than that. It's nothing like the complicated but disconcertingly opaque new M6. Instead it recalls the sharp, simple, transparently joyful M cars of old."

[Diver]

Originally Posted by TheSt|G

Aside from the 1M, the M brand is pretty dead.

To the OP though, the Cayman has 14.5 cubic feet of trunk space, we only have 10. Arguably it can hold more groceries in the trunk.

I think anyone who thinks the M brand is dead is jumping the gun, or the couch or whatever.

We can put the back seat down and I am sure that gives a lot more than luggage space than a Cayman. I think part of the appeal of the 135i is it provides sports car levels of performance in a package that does not look like a sports car. Some people do not want to be seen in a sports car for whatever reason. Besides, a Cayman costs a chunk more than a 135i.

[SCOTT26]

Whenever the death bell is rung for M, there is always the points that are missed. The more important one being the seismic shift over the past ten years in the ever-changing auto industry.

If M is guilty of anything it is purely as a victim of their own success.
BMW now cater to a global market. Far too many still live with the presumption it is all about North America . North America is M's biggest market but over the past ten years M's global position has broadened which has resulted in likes of vehicles like the X5M and X6M being introduced as the market has changed , whatever your opinion of the XM's they sell in volume numbers (for M) and in several strategic markets they are that best selling M vehicles.

When you compare special editions for different markets, although they might seem like credibility issues, they are at the end of the day successful business decisions because at the end of the day BMW manage to sell each one.
If you look at the M customer today you can see that opening the market to M products has increased the customer base , M cars still embody the purest expression of technology , driving dynamics and precision aswell as the defining factor of an M. Individuality. M cars are not simply re-badged road cars like our rivals. Everything is reworked to live up to the M-philosophy and represent true M values. They key starting point is to have a base that is already renowned to drive. This is why Audi reviews always label them "Average" because the standard car is Average.
My own opinion of M. Is that they are far more experimental than other performance brands bar Porsche.

As a sign of progress in the industry it is seen that high performance luxury cars are more likely to be bought as an example of status than an enthusiast choice. Sadly the ratio between enthusiasts and status has expanded more for the status buyer although each M is catered for the enthusiast there is no denying that technology in engineering , communication and luxury features define the demands of todays market.

The next BMW M3 Sedan heralds the start of a new era, an era where lightweight will now be a standard feature. The advent of BMW preferring to spend money in EfficientDynamics and BMW i over a supersports car sums up the state of the market. Sports cars sales are still depressed in regards to the economic crisis. A sports car would require serious investment for no return. Yes the XM's are being replaced because they are representitive of the seismic shift that we are seeing now of the rise of the SUV in place of the luxury sedan. People might see differently about the inclusion of many SUV choices but there is no denying SUV's drive sales , SUVs sell in huge numbers and generate huge numbers that is why you have seen concepts from Bentley and Lamborghini - The market is changing.

BMW M. is not just a brand it is also the launchpad for innovations and technology before it filters through to the core BMW models.
BMW M's. experimental use in CFRP has given BMW a very large advantage over its competitors in volume production of CFRP.
Although the sports car BMW i8 is not what one thinks of as a sports car. But is purely set out to be revolutionary thanks to a concept in which everything is individual from the ground up. The i8 is not what one would think as a performance car but BMW aim to defy conventional means with their most progressive concept of a sports car.

The next M3 not only shows that M knows how to make an already great car , even better. But will continue to evoke that passion that makes an M3 great , the pinnacle even. The purest expression of that renowned and much loved philosophy of a performance car from the race track to the road embodying heritage , driving-dynamics and of course that individuality that makes an M car not only the defining option but The Ultimate Driving Machine.

[NYC6]

I dont think its because people dont want to be 'seen in' a sports car. For many, a dedicated sports car doesnt offer the convinence of a sports coupe.
I own a sports car(C6 Corvette) and needed a DD to do the things we all need to do that a sports car doesnt do as well.
Get people in a back seat, fit coolers, fishing rods, tool boxes..... I also looked for a car that is reasonbly comfortable, a good seating position and easier to get in/out of than a low slung sports car. Being able to drive in snow/rain was also factored. Good visibility and a large greenhouse were also on my list. An important thing for me was performance. Its hard going from a 600hp Vette into a boring, slow econ box commuter. I wanted something that can push me into the seat well. The 135 was a car that has all this and more. The gitty up on the 135 is more than I expected.
Thats my take on it anyway.

[Dackelone]

Originally Posted by dmboone25

I think the main reason it seems so worse toady is that there are many more BMW models available now...in the 80's you had the 3,5,7...now you have those in many more variants, plus the 1,Z4,X1,X3,X5,X6...with other models on the way...

I think in the 80's and 90's things were simpler at BMW... Gone are the days when BMW made it's weißwurst in three different sizes: 3, 5, & 7.

Back in those days... an "iS" meant something and so did an //M. But now we have these never ending Special Edition models - every month from BMW.

I think BMW needs to start listening to its customers more and less to its bean counters and marketing dept idiots. They need to built an affordable sports car for the masses. Along the lines of the 1M, but not limited or hard to get - like it was.


Dack

[ptack]

I think the point here is that the M brand is not as exclusive as it once was. It is a victim of its own success and there's inherently something bad about being a victim. People here see very well how BMW is slapping M badges on all sorts of things. You want to talk about the M3, well maybe you should also talk about the M135i - the new, pseudo M car. Let's not kid ourselves. Sometime ago that car would have simply been a 5-door 135i, but someone at BMW thought "wait, if we stick an M in front we can charge more money", but there can come a point when an elite brand - and isn't the M brand supposed to be the pinnable of BMW? - becomes associated with things that are not elite. As Warren Buffet said, "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that you'll do things differently."