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Gus Van Sant casts the BMW i8 in soft light

BMW has spent the better part of a century building its reputation with fossil-burning transportation, but now it's banking heavily on the success of its new i family of electric vehicles. In order to succeed, it will need to sell examples of the i3, but sell the idea with the i8. And in order to do so, it is going to need some out-of-the-box promotional thinking. And that's just what it seems to have done with this latest campaign of television commercials.
The series of three (or at least that's how many have been released thus far) ads wax more poetic than most of the car ads we've seen. But while they might skimp on the technical details, they don't skip over the talent. The videos are the work of Oscar-nominated director Gus Van Sant, the cinematic artist best known for films like Good Will Hunting, Milk and Finding Forrester.
Van Sant has also solicited the voices of Sam Hazeldine (Caleb from Resurrection), Sting's daughter Mickey Sumner (Sophie from Frances Ha) and Michael Pitt (Jimmy from Boardwalk Empire), but doesn't hide them behind the microphone in the recording studio. Instead they serve as the face of Bavaria's new hybrid sports car, and the results are rather stunning. See for yourself in the trio of videos below.

Rolls-Royce sketching out SUV for possible 'late 2017' release

With each new story on the Rolls-Royce SUV, the Goodwood automaker comes off as more at ease with their reluctantly birthed yet necessary sport ute. Company design chief Giles Taylor told Autocar that his team is still "sketching to assess the viability of the concept," which to ours ears means they're trying to figure out if such a beast is even possible within the confines of the brand. If it is, Taylor says it will be "a shooting brake, not a crossover with a sloping roof. A proper SUV."
A different company source, unnamed, seems confident that Taylor's team will figure it out, telling the magazine it would start at 200,000 pounds ($335K US). However, that same source said the vehicle will be "a kind of Mercedes-GLK-plus-plus," which is a baffling description in several ways. More reasonable is the speculation that it will ride on Ghost, not Phantom, architecture and make its debut sometime around late 2017.
That Ghost platform is expected to take cues from the carbon, aluminum and steel bones that supported the BMW Vision Future Luxury concept shown at the Beijing Motor Show and destined for the 9 Series. Some of those tricks will also go into the next-generation Phantom, which Autocar says will come in 2017 and not 2020.

2015 BMW 2 Series Convertible will flip its lid for $38,850

For the most part, they look almost identical to their coupe versions, except that they now boast an electrically folding soft top.
BMW is dropping the top of the 2 Series in early 2015 in the US with convertible versions of the 228i and M235i. They'll make their world debut at the Paris Motor Show later this year and will show their faces on this side of the pond at the 2014 Los Angeles International Auto Show.