1995 Bmw M3 Base Coupe 2-door 3.0l on 2040-cars

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BMW Z5 roadster gets frosty in winter testing

The successor to the BMW Z4 (remember that thing?) is currently undergoing testing in what may be the least hospitable place for a two-seat roadster – northern Sweden. Yep, even sunshine-loving convertibles need to undergo winter testing. We still aren't 100-percent certain of the name, but rumors are pointing to BMW ditching the Z4 nomenclature in favor of Z5. As we've reported before, it's very likely that this car is being developed with help from Toyota. The platform underpinning the car shown here could become the long-awaited new Supra (albeit in hardtop-only form). We'd love to tell you about the look of this new car, but between the camouflage and the caked-on snow, it's hard to draw a bead. We can clearly see the headlights are inspired by newer BMWs like the 7 Series and 2 Series, but other details are harder to discern. The right elements are here, though. The prototype has a long hood and short rear deck. It's also worth pointing out that the car shown here marks a return to a canvas convertible roof. Aside from being less complex, our spies report that the soft top is being used to lower weight and provide sharper handling. While our report on the Z4's successor from March 2015 pointed to a 2020 launch date for the new roadster, our spies say the German part of this BMW/Toyota partnership could launch in late 2017 or early 2018 with four- and six-cylinder engine options. Related Video: Featured Gallery BMW Z5: Spy Shots Image Credit: CarPix Spy Photos BMW Toyota Convertible Performance bmw z5

Someone's willing to pay $16,000 for a hollow, non-working BMW i8

There is an unusual BMW i8 for sale on eBay right now. Unlike your average – and by that we mean "working" – i8, this one pretty much just sits there, looking pretty. See, the i8 in question is just a promotional body shell. It's fullsize and being sold (we think) by a legit BMW dealer (Laurel BMW of Westmont), so it's got strong ties to the real thing, but there's nothing inside. In fact, you can't open the doors or windows and the wheels don't move, unless you count the tiny rolling castors that are a part of the prop. There is no fancy plug-in hybrid powertrain – no powertrain of any sort, in fact – and it was "professionally crafted just for BMW dealers." The headlights do turn on, though, so that's something. What's most impressive, though, is that there are 50 bids for this non-working BMW. In fact, the bidding has climbed up to $16,000. For a car that can't fulfill its mission as a car, that's pretty impressive. Oh, and those bids have not yet hit the reserve price, so the dealer is obviously hoping it can get more money for this hollow BMW. The official base MSRP for a working i8 is $135,700. The first i8 delivered in the US, a special edition for Pebble Beach, just sold for $825,000.

2015 BMW Alpina B6 xDrive Gran Coupe

Alpina has been lovingly modifying BMWs for half a century, but as we learned during a tour of the company's HQ in Buchloe, Germany, Alpina has been in the wine distribution business for nearly as long. The company has an estimated million bottles on reserve in two warehouses and a beautiful wine cellar/tasting room on property in western Bavaria, just yards from where its 1,500 hand-crafted automobiles per year are produced.
What does that have to do with the new B6 Gran Coupe? Well, it may help make sense of the overall character of Alpina's automobiles, especially vis-à-vis the similarly priced, similarly powerful M Cars that BMW sells in far greater numbers. Alpinas are built by wine connoisseurs for wine connoisseurs, or wine connoisseur types; they are not rip-snortin' racecars for the road - that's M's domain. Alpinas are esoteric, rich in character and nuanced. But make no mistake: they are very, very fast.
Our brief first drive of the B6 Gran Coupe - the only 6 Series-based Alpina we'll get in the US for 2015 - took place on German autobahns and Austrian alpine roads, where the car is more at home than anywhere in the world, both literally and figuratively. With 540 horsepower and 540 pound-feet of torque on tap from its twin-turbocharged 4.4-liter V8 and xDrive all-wheel drive, the B6 is said to be able to hit 60 miles per hour in 3.7 seconds on its way to a top speed of 198 mph, a massive 43 mph faster than the M6, which is electronically limited to 155 mph. Yet even at insane speeds - we saw an indicated 190 mph on one particularly lonely stretch of Autobahn - the B6 feels more luxurious than sporty, taking the countenance of a low-slung Bentley Continental GT or an Aston Martin Rapide S, not a knife-edged supercar. It doesn't feel scintillating like a Porsche 911 GT2; rather it feels rock steady, like the 4,780-pound luxury sedan it is.