Nick Graves

Mike.

Nail.

Head.

MRmike

Some good points Mike, I took my Z4 3.0 SE in to get a part ex -

Nick Graves

Don't even get me started; they were talking about going global with the Acura brand (I hate that word!) too. What a completely stupid idea, when Honda has an excellent reputaion and (a short) but real racing heritage!

BMW used to be a great marque (as was Ferrari); now they're all brands in order to gain cachet with the totally vacuous.

It's an inevitability that nothing lasts forever (not even cold November rain) and great marques will become successful, increase their volume and become...volume. Look at Alfa Romeo pre- and post-war, for example.

It just seems that at present, there is no tomorrow & they're all about greed now & destroying their hard-won premium image as quickly as possible.

Piech is clever enough to understand this & has slotted in Lamborghini, Bentley & Bugatti, for when everyone thinks Audi is a bit Aldi.

But it IS about economics and once the leasing rates that allow people to get a BMW for the price of an Ashtray or a Hocus disappear, so will the all the buyers.

Crotch Rocket

As far as I'm concerned BMW turned to sh*t when the E30 & E34 were replaced, after that they just became a german mass market rep mobile with declining quality.

Mercedes went the same way but it remains to be seen whether they have rectified this with the new C class.

Subaru2000

That's it chaps, stay positive