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BMW 3 Series Gran Turismo gets leaked well ahead of Geneva reveal

The great power of the internet has allowed us to get an early first look at the all-new BMW 3 Series Gran Turismo, a car that is slated to be shown in full at the Geneva Motor Show next month, albeit without many details to go on right now. With pictures leaking out this early in the game, we'd expect that you won't have to wait until March to get the full lowdown, however.
Our first look at the 3er GT reveals a car that is, to our eyes, a tidier piece of design work than its 5 Series GT brother. The long-backside proportions are still a bit ungainly, at least from these images, but they're helped tremendously with the larger wheel/tire package and more aggressive fascia of the sport package.
Expect the 3 Series GT to hit the ground running, with the same turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder and 3.0-liter inline-six found in the standard 3 Series sedan. BMW's popular xDrive all-wheel-drive system is a virtual lock for the option sheet, too.

BMW Pininfarina Gran Lusso Coup'e bows at Villa d'Este

The first collaboration between BMW and Pininfarina is this blunt-force two-door called the BMW Pininfarini Gran Lusso Coupe revealed at the Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este. Said to be the "interpretation of a luxurious BMW Coupé as seen through the eyes of Pininfarina," once you get past all of the design-speak, you can focus on the full-bodied and keen-edged missile sitting on 21-inch wheels.
The long wheelbase makes for short overhangs. Up front, BMW's design language gets scraped across a whetstone, everything getting sharper, including the usually round cat's eye headlights that have gone dihedral. Under the hood is a V12, behind the twin-kidney grille in matte-sheen aluminium and high-gloss black. The same aluminum treatment also backs the taillights, the lenses designed to let air flow through them.
Inside is room for four, a cockpit canted toward the driver, Foglizzo leather in black and Tobacco Brown, 48,000-year-old kauri wood from New Zealand, deep pile carpet on the floors, a patterned virgin wool headliner and an "oblong aperture in the roof liner" set off by white LEDs.

BMW invests in carbon fiber for use beyond i and M models

The immense amount of resources BMW has poured into its i brand program hasn't stopped, and recent developments indicate it's likely to pay off for BMW and BMW buyers outside the i brand. The i8 has already sold out its first year run, the i3 racked up 10,000 orders before it even went on sale and is already the subject of public discussion about being stretched into an i5, and a new investment in carbon fiber production has the automaker talking about CFRP use in non-i and non-M models.
BMW and SGL Group got together to form SGL Automotive Carbon Fibers (ACF), and the joint venture produces all of the CFRP for the i3 and i8 on two production lines at its plant in Moses Lake, Washington. After already investing $100 million to increase capacity, BMW has announced that another $200 million will add four more production lines, tripling production from 3,000 tons per year to 9,000 tons. When the expansion is complete in 2015, BMW says the Moses Lake facility will be the world's largest carbon fiber plant.
That's a lot of weave and the long view is that it will find its way into core models, with BMW exec Dr. Klaus Draeger saying, "As part of an intelligent mix of materials, we will apply carbon also beyond our BMW i and BMW M models in the future," and be able to do so "at competitive costs and in large quantities."