|
1. The shape of the car is BEAUTIFUL!!! However...
2. Phoenix Yellow is UGLY!!! (IMHO)
3. I question the judgement of BMW bringing the car over here in such a controversial color. The Titanium Silver would have been a MUCH BETTER choice!
4. The car looks like it's on steroids, or, at least on weight training... sort of like the Arnold Schwartzenegger school of automotive design. My '97 E36 ///M3 looks athletic, in a "well-conditioned" and graceful sort of way, like a Jerry Rice or a Michael Jordan, strong and quick without an ounce of fat. The E46 looks muscular and powerful like a Mike Tyson. To continue the boxing analogy, it looks like a boxer who has put on weight to move up a weight class. Now, it remains to be seen if he can win a championship at the new, higher weight.
5. The car looks like it is suspended too high above the wheels. There is about a 1.5 inch gap between the top of the rear tires and the wheel well, with maybe a two inch gap in front. My E36 ///M3 has much smaller gaps than this. Will this cause too much body roll? Will the car need to be lowered as soon as it is delivered?
6. If you look at the E46 328ci, there is a styling crease that starts at the front of the car, at the top of the front quarter panel and goes all the way to the back. However, on the ///M3, when they flared the front wheel arches, they interupted this crease in front of, and behind the flares. This leaves a small, 2.5 to 3 inch crease in front of the front wheels flare. It looks, at first glance, like a big scratch or gash in the sheet metal because it isn't connected to anything. Once you look again, you realize what it is, but it still doesn't look quite right. Maybe they'll notice it and fix it before final production.
7. I like the wheels more than I thought I would, based on the pictures. However, I like my E36 17" M Contours better. I wonder if they will fit the E46?
8. Someone asked for observations of other people's reactions to the car, especially reactions of the ladies. I was quite surprised at how little excitement the car seemed to generate. The Z9 Concept car was in front of it, and it totally stole the show from the ///M3. People were three deep looking at the Z9, while there was lots of open space around the ///M3. The vast majority of ///M3 viewers were male, and most just stood for a minute or two with what I would describe as a "contemplative" expression. There was only one young girl of about sixteen who was openly interested in the car and who dragged her father over to look at it. (Her father, BTW, seemed more interested in the ///M5). There was very little conversation about the car by people looking at it. In contrast, when I viewed the Jaguar F-Type, I heard women gasp when they first saw the car, and I saw men stand with their mouths open. The Z8 also had that affect on several people. The question of it's "babe magnetism" is, at this point unanswered, I think because of the ugly color of the car. Make it red or a really cool blue and I think it could definitely turn some heads!
9. The most disconcerting thing I heard at the show, and I heard it from three different salespeople from three different NY dealers, was that the intitial shipment of cars was going to be "unspecified." IOW, those of us who have been "on-the-list" for a long time, (I put my deposit down last June), will NOT be allowed to pre-order the car to our spec's. BMW will ship "nicely-equiped" cars to the dealerships. If the first person on the list doesn't want the car, the next person is called. Pre-orders will not be taken for several months. With my luck, the first one my dealer gets will be Phoenix Yellow with Camel Leather interior. I just hope he doesn't have to sell the damn thing before his allotment allows him to "order" on for me.
Bottom line for me is that I will have to wait and see what the driving reviews say about the car. The ultimate test is how the car drives; how it handles, how it accelerates and brakes, how it red-lines, up-shifts and downshifts, whether it understeers or oversteers and how it "feels" on the road. That stuff is much more important to me than how many heads it turns and it's 'Babe-magnetism." And you can't tell any of that by looking at the car at an auto show.
I guess I'm still left waiting. I guess I'm just lucky to be able to drive my E36 ///M3 until the new car is available.
Craig
'97 ///M3/2 Lux 5 Spd.
Techno-Violet/Mulberry
#1 @ $tealer for E46 ///M3
© 1997 -
2010
Jump Internet Inc. All rights reserved.
