Bmw M3 Base Coupe 2-door on 2040-cars

Auto blog

BMW dishes on 'lightweight' 2014 M4

BMW's M cars are not what we'd call featherweights. Sure, the big, bruising twin-turbocharged V8s deliver a lot of power, but the fact of the matter is that more weight often equates to less fun.
Which is why we're so excited over a recent sit-down the blokes at Top Gear had with BMW's product manager for small and medium cars, Matt Collins. The chat led to talk of the M3 Coupe replacing M4. Collins confirmed that, yes, the new M4 would be turbocharged. The new engine will also be a six-cylinder, which should make purists happy.
"What we'd like is more focus on lightweight engineering." -Matt Collins

BMW 5 Series GT spied in the snow

Tuesday, December 22 might be the official start of winter, but as the northern hemisphere hunkers down for the darkest and coldest days of the year, the automotive testing community is beginning its annual migration to the snow-covered roads of Sweden. For BMW, that means heading north with the new 5 Series Gran Turismo. This isn't the first time we've seen the hunchbacked five-door, as our spies captured it about six weeks ago testing in Germany. This new round of images doesn't reveal a great deal more about the 5GT, but it's further evidence that BMW is moving into the next stage of testing. This still looks like it'll be a more stylish evolution of the original 5GT idea. And as our spies report, we can still expect a significant weight savings, too. We're still expecting the the second-gen 5GT to arrive in late 2016. Check out the full gallery of snowy spy shots up top.

BMW Pininfarina Gran Lusso Coupe and Concept 90 pics from Villa d'Este

Royalty and the ultra-wealthy rubbed damp shoulders at this past weekend's Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este on the shores of Italy's Lake Como, but even the rain couldn't extinguish the excitement generated by the millions of dollars of cars and bikes on display. Nowhere was this more true than with BMW, which marked the occasion with the reveal of two stunning concepts with six wheels between them - the shark-nosed Pininfarina Gran Lusso Coupe and the retrosexual Concept 90 motorcycle.
Conceived with Italian design house Pininfarina, the Gran Lusso Coupe is a power broker on 21-inch wheels. While we're not completely sold on every element of its design, this twelve-cylinder two-door concept moves us more than the current 6 Series, and not just because it has four more cylinders underhood and 48,000-year-old kauri wood paneling inside. BMW is sadly mum on production hopes, but we're not entirely optimistic - the company has graced us with a number of attractive concepts at Villa d'Este before, only to pack them away again without ever affording them a production future.
If one of these concepts has a better shot at finding its way into dealers, we have to believe it's the Concept 90 under the BMW Motorrad umbrella. Designed to celebrate the 40th anniversary of BMW's R 90 S, we think this Roland Sands Design air-cooled boxer would look fantastic on today's streets, especially with the rising popularity of vintage motorcycles and cafe racers.