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BMW 4 Series Gran Coupe blows the doors back on [w/video]

BMW sure seems to take pleasure in confusing the hell out of us. It used to be pretty simple: if you wanted a compact Bimmer, you had to look no further than the 3 Series. Then it was just a matter of which bodystyle you wanted. But the smaller end of BMW's lineup has gotten more complicated lately. Never mind the 1 Series and 2 Series (in their various iterations) that have slotted in below it - now the 3 Series has been split in two: Want a four-door, get the new 3 Series. Want a two-door, the 4 Series is your address. Right?
Almost. Because now there's a 4 Series Gran Coupe that keeps the two-door's roofline (or some approximation of it) but adds an extra set of doors in the back, thereby bridging the gap between the 3 Series sedan and 4 Series coupe. And it's just made its public debut here at the Geneva Motor Show.
The difference between this and the two-door 4 Series is plain to see: it's got two extra doors. But what's the difference between this and the 3 Series sedan? About two or three grand, to start with - depending on which version (428i Gran Coupe or 435i Gran Coupe) you choose. But it's also sleeker, more muscular and altogether that extra bit sexier. Which is a good trait, as you can see from our gallery of live shots above, to have in your European sports sedan, coupe, or whatever you want to call it.

M-fographic breaks down the history of BMW performance machinery

Few characters carry the kind of clout among performance enthusiasts as the letter M. For 35 years now, that one letter has adorned over 300,000 BMWs, each tuned to deliver a higher degree of performance than the stock models on which they're based.
The M division has worked up nearly 100 different models over the past third of a century, which can leave even the most expert among Bimmer fanatics bewildered. Fortunately British auto loan service Carfinance247 has commissioned this handy infographic to make sense of it all, and you can check it out below to see what the letter M really stands for.

2014 BMW 535d xDrive

I absolutely love to travel, but man, do I hate flying. Not the act of flying itself, but air travel in general - slogging through the airport, dealing with security, fighting with delays, only to finally be crammed like cattle into a too-small airplane seat where you're offered $8 sandwiches that are half-frozen. (Okay, it's not always that bad, but still.)
So when I was tasked with attending the launch for the 2015 Subaru WRX STI in Carmel, CA, I had a choice to make. I could fly into San Francisco and find my own way down to Carmel, or I could grab a turbo-prop out of SFO and fly directly into Monterey. And since you're reading about all of this in a car review, it's pretty obvious which option I chose.
The current BMW 5 Series isn't a new car, despite receiving a couple of updates for the 2014 model year. But what is new is the 3.0-liter turbodiesel inline six-cylinder engine found underhood, borrowed from the larger X5 xDrive35d and also seen in the upcoming 740Ld xDrive. It's a honey of an engine, and here in the 5 Series, it makes for a truly first-class experience.