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BMW bringing 9 Series concept to Beijing

It appears that BMW is ready to take another step upmarket with a new concept flagship luxury sedan at the Beijing Motor Show at the end of April. The showcar is said to preview the company's rumored 9 Series, a sedan that would be positioned against top trims of the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, like the rumored S600 Maybach.
According to Automotive News Europe, the concept sedan wears styling language adapted from the curvaceous BMW Pininfarina Gran Lusso Coupe (pictured above) shown at the 2013 Villa d'Este Concours d'Elegance in May. It rides on BMW's new, modular platform - codenamed G11 - for the company's largest cars, an architecture also expected to be shared with the next 7 Series and future Rolls-Royce vehicles. It's rumored to bring the weight of the 7 closer to the 5 Series, which would be several hundred pounds lighter when comparing the base models of both current vehicles. We spotted the next-gen 7 Series testing over a year ago, and both it and the 9 Series are expected to go on sale in 2016.
Unfortunately, at the moment there is no official information about the concept. "We don't have any official news yet on anything in Beijing," Julian Arguelles, BMW USA spokesperson, tells Autoblog. However, it's heartening to think that BMW might be adapting the gorgeous shape of the Gran Lusso for production.

Behind the Scenes of BMW's 'Drift Mob,' Part 2 [w/video]

After spending four days practicing about a dozen drift stunt moves in a parking lot for an upcoming BMW "Drift Mob" internet mini-film, Rhys Millen, Sam Hübinette, Dai Yoshihara, Rich Rutherford, and Conrad Grunewald are finally ready for show time. We are brought to the huge urban traffic circle to see the stunts performed midway through the day to observe for a couple of hours.
The undertaking is massive, with multiple cameras set up, scores of crew members, a helicopter filming from above, a rigged pickup for car-to-car shots, sidewalks lined with security and plenty of curious onlookers, and oh, yeah, a major intersection of a top world city shut down for an entire weekend.
The five drifting legends are nestled in their identical red BMW M235i coupes, which have been modified with special handbrakes but essentially nothing else you can't get on a stock version, and are listening to direction from director Mic Rodgers and stunt coordinator Riley Harper. We're basically given free rein of the set, to shoot the cars, the drivers, and at one point, even hopping in with Yoshihara for one of the admittedly more tame stunts. Even then, the g-forces are so severe that they flip our cameraphone's video recording from landscape mode to portrait. Yes, this is a pretty cool day to be reporting on cars, and as we said during our first installment of our behind the scenes coverage of Drift Mob, we're honored to be the only US media outlet here to tell the tale.

European car sales up 8% in February

Three weeks ago an analyst increased projections for European car sales this year, expecting them to climb three percent compared to last year instead of 2.7 percent. That number is a postive sign after years of hard times but it turns out February was especially good, overall European sales climbing eight percent on a wave of southern European recovery and discounts - and this comes after five months of gains including January's 7.2-percent jump over the year before.
The only country of Europe's five largest markets to post a decline was France, just as it did in January, Germany, the UK and Italy posting solid double-digit numbers, Spain rocking the charts with an 18-percent increase because of a government program to encourage trade-ins.
The only brand to miss the wave was Volkswagen, dropping 0.8 percent as it watched the double-digit growth at sister brands Audi, Seat and Skoda lift the Volkswagen Group sales up by seven-percent. Peugeot overcame flat sales at Citroën to improve the group by 3.5 percent, BMW and the Mercedes-Benz/Smart combo rose by four percent, the Fiat group jumped 5.8 percent, Ford was up 11 percent, the Renault Group 11.5 percent, General Motors 12 percent and the Toyota clan by 14 percent.