I, usually, love BMW. After all they are the “ultimate
driving machine.” But lately I've lost interest. When they took the V10 from
the M5 I was disappointed but understood the switch to a turbocharged V8.
Then they starting designing their cars to look like something Infiniti would
build and began pleating the hood. Shortly after that, news came that they
wanted to build a front-wheel drive fuel efficient coupe, and a part of me
died. Since then I've been backing away slowly, like finding out your crush is
really a psycho with a strange amount of cats.
For the last two years my poor friends have had to listen to
me complain about how Asian influenced the new BMWs looked. Most disagreed but
I’d point out that German car makers mostly go for classic lines and timeless
bodies, while BMW has currently strayed from this path. Maybe they wanted to
reach a new demographic but more plausible is that they built a new engineering
building and some risky chemicals from the new dry wall effected their reasoning.
Either way, I don’t like BMW’s designs now and if I were to buy a German car
today it would be a Mercedes Benz without a doubt. And honestly I'd have to, I
just couldn't afford to buy a BMW because it would frighten me with how ugly it
is every time I’d open the garage. Yesterday I found what could be the reason why BMW is starting to mimic an Asian car
company, they’re building a car with Toyota. As I've heard my entire life
growing up, show me your friends and I’ll show you you. Most importantly this
brings up what I really wanted to talk about because have no fear, one day BMW
will look good again. Its joint models, they’re becoming increasingly popular
and will make up a large chunk of the automotive industry in the future.
This
is not really a new concept but one that is just now gaining momentum. Car
companies are now, more than ever, working together to not just share parts and
technology, but share complete cars. This sharing helps them spread high cost
for things like electric battery research and design and I think it’s a good
idea. But there is one problem I see on the horizon. Will you buy your new
sports car from Toyota or BMW? Will you be okay driving a BMW with a Toyota
engine? Hard to say but I’m not worried because I’m sure it will be ugly and I
will never have to worry about driving it, but you might. I’m sure no one minds
driving a Toyota with a BMW chassis but people probably don’t want to pull up
to a light next to the cheaper Toyota version of their BMW sports car. Or what
if your M5 develops the Toyota stuck accelerator problem, you’d be riding a
shooting star. I think some marriages will be better than others. Subaru and
Toyota works, BMW and Mercedes works, Honda and Ford could work, VW and Hyundai
could work, but Audi and Kia…absolutely not. Car companies will need to deeply
consider their brand status before they partner with another company. BMW’s
Asian fetish could hurt their status with German car enthusiasts and that’s a
crowd VW, Audi, Opel, Porsche, Mercedes, and especially BMW don’t want to
upset. I’m sure in the next few years we will have some great collaborations and
some that will flop. So will we finally get the next generation Toyota Supra
and will it have a BMW drive train? Just have to wait and see…
Photos by danielctw via http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielctw/2552715259/sizes/l/in/photostream
and srgblog via http://www.flickr.com/photos/srgblog/2095680870/sizes/l/in/photostream
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