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2013 BMW M6 Coupe

The Act And The Exclamation
The 2013 BMW M6 is a rolling obscenity - one that begins with the capital letter "F." It is both the act and the exclamation, the curse and the encouragement. It courts no logic. It is all want and no need, and it is unbecoming of the BMW roundel. Whereas the brand's products once strove to unite man and machine in a duet of blissful performance, the M6 seems built solely to stand between the driver and the road. You are very clearly in its way every second you're behind the wheel, slowing it down and generally being the Monday morning to its two-day trance festival. It's clear this car is very fast, but it has no interest in making you fast in the way that the M3 or even the M5 are wont to do.
But somehow, all that doesn't stop the car from stoking every last lick of lust in your gut. A 560-horsepower twin-turbocharged V8 will do that for you.

Why won't automakers slap on a turbo badge anymore?

Where have all the turbos gone? Not the actual pieces that go in the engine, mind you, those are everywhere these days as automakers downsize cylinder counts and boost efficiency and CO2 claims. But the turbo badges and fanfare are missing. Back when turbos were something to get excited about there was "turbo-driven," "turbonium," and "The Turbo Zone," among other silly lines. But now that basically every car is getting some sort of boost even on the lowliest trims, automakers are almost sliding in the turbos under the radar. Or if you look at some of the nomenclature, pretending they don't exist at all. The 911 Turbo badge shows where the car goes from being sane to lunatic. It's an important border. The latest automaker to hide that it has boosted the turbo presence is Porsche with the 2017 911 lineup. Even the standard Carrera models now get turbocharged flat-six engines, meaning the 911 Turbo models aren't quite as special as they once were. Porsche is in a sticky situation with this. The 911 Turbo, after all, signifies where the 911 family takes off from being a sports car and becomes the Ferrari fighter. The 911 Turbo badge shows where the car goes from being sane to lunatic. It's an important border, but now Porsche has crossed it and is trying to downplay the fact. There are a lot of exaggerations with displacement badges today, with claims the 2.0-liter turbo four in a Mercedes C Class equates to a naturally aspirated 3.0-liter six to make a C300. Volvo is pretty far up there, too, saying an XC90 T8 means V8 power, even though it's a 2.0-liter turbocharged and supercharged four with electric assist. I don't know why BMW can't just call the car a 330i Turbo, rather than inflating the numbers up to 340i. Saab tried all of this back in the '90s when it decided to turbocharge its entire lineup, from light pressure units all the way up to models actually called "Saab 9-3 HOT" (for high-output turbo). But then the brand deleted any external reference to the turbo under the hood and people wondered why they were buying a $42,000 four-cylinder convertible. And that didn't turn out well. Even though these turbo replacements often make more power than their naturally aspirated predecessors, they're very different engines. People knew something changed when they exchanged their leased 328i with a 3.0-liter six for a 328i with a 2.0-liter turbo four.

BMW Vision Neue Klasse, next-gen Mini due out at Munich auto show

Munich replaced Frankfurt on the global auto show circuit in 2021, and the shift works in the BMW Group's favor — one of Europe's biggest automotive events now takes place in its backyard. The company has detailed the new BMW and Mini models it will bring to the 2023 show. One of the most important unveilings for BMW — and likely one of the most noteworthy cars we'll see displayed at the Munich show — is the Vision Neue Klasse. More than merely a concept car, the design study will serve as an accurate preview of how BMW's entire range will evolve in the coming years. We haven't seen it yet, but we're told it's packed with electrification- and digitalization-related innovations. While the brand notes that the Vision Neue Klasse will be on the road "before long," it's reasonable to assume that the plug-in hybrid variants of the eighth-generation 5 Series that will also debut in Munich are closer to reaching production. Two models called 530e xDrive and 550e xDrive are due out in spring 2024, though it's too early to tell whether we'll see them on our shores. The former uses a hybrid system built around a four-cylinder engine, while the latter benefits from a straight-six. In both systems, the electric motor is integrated into an eight-speed automatic transmission. The 530e and the 550e put 299 and 489 horsepower, respectively, under the driver's right foot. BMW notes that integrating the 19.4-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack into the 5's underbody lowers the center of gravity while keeping trunk space intact. The 530e can drive for up to 63 miles on electric power, a figure that drops to 56 miles for buyers who select the 550e, though both numbers were achieved on the optimistic WLTP testing cycle used in Europe. Both cars come with a 7.4-kilowatt charger. Mini will unveil two new models at the Munich show: the next-generation Cooper (which replaces the Hardtop, or the Hatch if you're reading this from the United Kingdom) and the next-generation Countryman. Both models will be available with gasoline or electric power. We've seen the Hardtop's new-look interior in official images, it notably loses the outgoing model's instrument cluster and gains a round OLED screen in the middle of the dashboard, and we've seen the little hatchback undisguised in spy shots. Spy shots have also revealed the next-generation Countryman, which wears a boxier-looking exterior design and seemingly grows in size, before the official unveiling in Munich.