We aren't normal people. (more) (archive)

Is 75% of the **enjoyment** of driving done at that time. No. Absolutely not. I hate traffic! 75% of the the enjoyment of driving my bmws happens during the longer way home, the autocrosses I attend at every chance I get, and on trips. The rest happens every time I point into a corner and hit the gas.

>I'm fascinated by how marketing skews consumers' perception of fact and truth.

This is the problem with narrow-minded focus groups that compares results on paper vs. a real driving experience. You can point to statistics all day long, but just plain 0-60 times do not tell a whole story.

Furthermore, I can't recall the last time I really looked at or even cared about E36 M3 advertising. And 2002 advertising was long gone before I was ten years old. In fact, I never bought any of the 5 BMWs I've owned because of any advertising, but because of opinions of (1) either journalists whose relative opinions I was familiar with, or from (2) opinions or first-hand exposure from people I knew either in person or on an online community such as this one.

> I think I've made clear that most of what makes a BMW special and unique is put to no good use on American roads.

You've made it clear that's what *you* believe.

There probably are lots of BMW owners out there that buy BMWs for 'sensible' reasons. They buy automatics, they buy fluff items, and they buy volume models, they buy 'image' items and to some extent BMW caters to them. This is what companies call 'making money'. These are perhaps the people you are targeting with your misplaced rhetoric.

But you probably won't find too many of those people around here. The people here are the kind of people who cackle maniacally when they dream about turbocharging their M52 or transplanting an S52. They are the kind of people who feel a noticible difference when slapping an X-brace. They put 40DCOEs or S14s in their 2002s. They put $1400 exhausts on their M Roadsters and the first time they fire things up again they smile and nod in approval. They know the difference between nikasil and allusil V8 blocks, and will unleash a metalurgical litany in your direction if provoked. They know the size, offset, bolt pattern and speed rating of their wheels and tires. They have tools in their garage and oily dirt beneath their fingernails. They go to Rallies, UDEs, M Days, autocrosses, 02 Fests, track days, and they all have stories about great days they've spent with others doing the same thing in spite of hell or high water.

In short, this is a place where BMW nuts communicate other BMW nuts, and there's nothing logical about our passsion.

You might want to think about when you're composing your next post.

Andy
'97 M3
'72 2002tii

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