2000 Bmw 540i Base Wagon 4-door 4.4l Dinan Supercharged on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Europe's BMW 1 Series hatch caught looking fresh faced

Hey, remember the BMW 1 Series? Yes, German brand's successors to the US-market coupe and convertible have one-upped the old car to wear the 2 Series designation now, but in other markets, our No. 1 crush still lives on, and as evidenced in these spy shots, the entry-level hatch appears to be undergoing a modest facelift.
We've spotted prototypes of the refreshed 1 Series before, with the majority of the car's changes focused around the front fascia. This time around, we're seeing the three-door variant, with wheels seemingly fitting of a Sport or even M Sport trim.
Of course, this One's not for US, as the small BMW isn't slated to come to our market anytime soon. Click through the gallery above to see what we're missing.

2015 BMW Alpina B6 xDrive Gran Coupe

Alpina has been lovingly modifying BMWs for half a century, but as we learned during a tour of the company's HQ in Buchloe, Germany, Alpina has been in the wine distribution business for nearly as long. The company has an estimated million bottles on reserve in two warehouses and a beautiful wine cellar/tasting room on property in western Bavaria, just yards from where its 1,500 hand-crafted automobiles per year are produced.
What does that have to do with the new B6 Gran Coupe? Well, it may help make sense of the overall character of Alpina's automobiles, especially vis-à-vis the similarly priced, similarly powerful M Cars that BMW sells in far greater numbers. Alpinas are built by wine connoisseurs for wine connoisseurs, or wine connoisseur types; they are not rip-snortin' racecars for the road - that's M's domain. Alpinas are esoteric, rich in character and nuanced. But make no mistake: they are very, very fast.
Our brief first drive of the B6 Gran Coupe - the only 6 Series-based Alpina we'll get in the US for 2015 - took place on German autobahns and Austrian alpine roads, where the car is more at home than anywhere in the world, both literally and figuratively. With 540 horsepower and 540 pound-feet of torque on tap from its twin-turbocharged 4.4-liter V8 and xDrive all-wheel drive, the B6 is said to be able to hit 60 miles per hour in 3.7 seconds on its way to a top speed of 198 mph, a massive 43 mph faster than the M6, which is electronically limited to 155 mph. Yet even at insane speeds - we saw an indicated 190 mph on one particularly lonely stretch of Autobahn - the B6 feels more luxurious than sporty, taking the countenance of a low-slung Bentley Continental GT or an Aston Martin Rapide S, not a knife-edged supercar. It doesn't feel scintillating like a Porsche 911 GT2; rather it feels rock steady, like the 4,780-pound luxury sedan it is.

Updated BMW X6 spied running the 'Ring in Germany

Following the debut of the X5 earlier this year, it shouldn't come as a shock that BMW is testing an updated X6 in its homeland. The Munich-based manufacturer trekked to the Nürburgring to test the lifted, four-door coupe it calls a Sports Activity Vehicle, while also giving us our first peak as to what the future holds for one of the weirder models in the brand's stable.
Mainly, we can safely expect the next X6 to get the same range of refinements made to its platform-mate, the X5, which debuted earlier this year. If we're lucky, that could mean an X6 sDrive35i, complete with rear-wheel drive with which to fling the big SAV about. Adding a rear-drive option could also broaden its admittedly limited appeal by lowering the cost of entry, which could serve the pricier X6 well. As a point of reference, the X5 sDrive35i is priced at $2,300 below an xDrive all-wheel-drive-equipped model.
The X6's top-flight xDrive50i model should get the same 45-horsepower bump as the X5 xDrive50i, thanks to refinements to its twin-turbocharged, 4.4-liter V8, while the 3.0-liter, turbocharged six-pot should remain unchanged. We wouldn't hold our breath for an X6 diesel to arrive, although weirder stuff has happened. Like the X5, though, this should be a pretty slim refit that improves an already competent package to go along with an expected increase in price.