Best Of

Has BMW lost its grip? It used to be the other way around.

Their drivetrains are still very good- particularly the inline sixes paired with the ZF HP8. I was turned off by the Lego/Minecraft exterior design language and an interior styled to wow the rubes. As I've mentioned before, I took a long time BMW employee for a spirited drive in my C43 and he remarked that if he'd been blindfolded he would have guessed that it was an M Car from BMW's high water mark in the '90s.

@andres3 - I think Porsche designs and builds the “Turbo” model 1st and then reverse engineers the S and base models vehicles. BMW on the other hand seems like they build the “30i & M40i” variants 1st, then add the high performance bits to make the full blown ///M car.

I'll again reference Throttle House host Thomas Holland; to paraphrase, he commented that driving the W205 C43 felt like a special occasion while the M340i only felt like a 330i with more horsepower.

The Slate Blue targa in the 3rd picture, next to the awning. Looks exactly like my '84.

That's the one I was going to pick out of the mix, great color. Similar to but not quite the color of Bill Lumbergh's 911SC:

Has BMW lost its grip? It used to be the other way around.

I agree, Andre.... the guides are absolutely the issue with any timing chain setup. They add them so that the block can be more compact and it helps keep the system quieter on startup, but they cannot help but wear with time, and when they do, it is nothing but problems. Even if chains were as long or longer than present, without the guides, they would almost always last well beyond the rest of the car. The only issue is that they would take up far more space due to making a straight shot from the crank to the cams, and they would also need to be much tighter, which would require more robust bearings at all points.

@andres3 - I think Porsche designs and builds the “Turbo” model 1st and then reverse engineers the S and base models vehicles. BMW on the other hand seems like they build the “30i & M40i” variants 1st, then add the high performance bits to make the full blown ///M car.