It Puts the M in BMW.

BMW has been around in one incarnation or another for nigh on 100 years, and there is very good reason for that, they've always known what their customers have wanted. 


Bavarian Motor Works began its life fitting rotary engines to the light-weight aircraft used to maim and kill Allied soldiers in WW1, a tradition it re-instated under Hitlers 3rd Reich, powering many of the aircraft that pounded London to rubble during the blitz. 


However during the swing years between the wars, BMW began to produce full sized luxury sedans based on the legendary Austin 7 as well as motorcycles.


This decidedly German perseverance and determination has ensured BMW's place at the forefront of both the european luxury and performance markets. That and always picking the right side, when its convenient. 


BMW's party piece for the last 38 years has been it's legendary M-Division. Created in May of 1972 with a staff of eight, the M-Division's mission was to water down the companies race cars into ones that would be at home in the parking lot of your local supermarket. The approach was a great success, giving birth to the   incredible 3.0 CSL which had room in the boot for things, a backseat for children and would get you home like your pants were on fire. 


The equally storied BMW M1 was also a product of this mantra, but it was more watered down race car than everyday grocery getter. Sporting only two buckets in the front, a straight six in the back and a super car style body, it was very exclusive and very inconvenient for anything other than impressing a hot date with your ability destroy your wheels while en-route to a delicious meal consisting mostly of fondue.


When 1979 rolled around, the mantra was changed, and the M-Division began to beef up it's existing saloon cars by feeding the engines with garbage bags of crack cocaine. The first car to emerge from the M-Divisions head quarters in frankenstein's lab was the incredible first generation M5.


Unveiled at the 1984 Amsterdam Motor Show, the M5 was based on the  E28 5series, but on steroids, crack and many other hallucinogenic, mind altering drugs, making Amsterdam a fitting place for it to be unveiled. 


It had a re-worked and re-tuned version of the M-1's 3.5L straight 6 lurking under the bonnet and a specially tuned chassis to handle the beast up front. It was the fasted production saloon when it was released, and sparked a revolution in the european car world.


The idea of a hand-built performance saloon car was no new concept, but the fact that the hands building the M-Divisions performance saloons were in fact German hands, made the idea all that much more easy to stomach.


And stomach it the european car buyer did, they ate it up and asked for more, and as a result, here we stand 38 years later and the M-Division has sold more than 300,000 models, with the M3 alone.


Instead of diving with the rest of the automotive sales during the recent world-wide recession, M-Division sales actually increased by 50 per cent across the board. A very notable achievement,one that proves that no matter what the odds, BMW can overcome whatever the world throws at it, whether it be wars, communist states or the world's wallets being filled with lint and receipts, proving that nothing, no matter what the odds can beat a well built, over-powered automobile.  

The People's Car.

Interestingly enough, the hot hatchback was not built upon a foundation made of bricks and mortar, but one made of small, white and dimpled balls, which would seem unstable as foundations go, but if you asked Volkswagen i'm sure they'd recommend it. 

It's been 46 years since VW revolutionized the car market with it's seriously dependable, tough little hatchback, the Volkswagen Golf. The recipe was and is a simple one, so simple that it's been repeated hundreds of times by car makers the world over, but no one carmaker has been able to sink the fatherland's favorite son.

Four seats, decent storage and a quick, fuel sipping engine stuffed into a handsome small package is the Golf defined, and as much a VW would love to deny it, over the years their simple, delicious bratwurst has been pounded down into fat soaked, cheese dripping, stomach rupturing double quarter pounder that Ronald would be proud to call his own.

As a result of this middle aged paunch, the competition were running circle around the Golf, throwing feces, water balloons full of urine and the lot and the poor fat and balding Golf . VW took this turn of events very seriously and threw the Golf on a strict diet of lentils and rogaine, but not before sending it to the car wash, to scrub the stains of failure from its windows.

And so, in 2003 a back to the basics Golf emerged from the factories in it's finest track suit, with Mk5 stitched on to the breast.

Sadly though it wasn't much of an improvement as hot hatches go, sure it was the same, indestructible, eternal Volkswagen Golf, but it lacked the pomp and excitement of its great grandfather. 

Let me be clear in saying that the Golf has been an indestructible sales machine, with over 25 million built and sold around the world as of 2007, it's criticisms do not lie with its impeachable reputation as a affordable family hatch, but with its reputation as the daddy of all hot hatches.

VW's latest incarnation of the Golf GTI, the Mk6 has hit all of the nails on the head, its sleek sexy body and subtle GTI badging let people know that you're a bit serious but doesn't shout at them like the school yard bully with some serious self esteem issues. It's handsome, well equipped and it's 2 liter, 200 bhp turbo charged four pot won't leave you wanting for power, the interior trim is improved and the ride is said to be significantly quieter than the Mk5.

By investing in a GTI, you are not only investing in a well built family car, you are also investing in it's rich history and entering into a close knit family, I use the word invest with purpose, because Golf's have one of the best re-sale values on the market, built upon the trust of 46 years of impeccable build quality, and ready availability. 

Take my word for it; if it means anything to you, you won't have any trouble selling your Golf a few years down the road when you want to move on to something else, and what is even better is that you will get most of your original investment back.

Thats if you take good care of it, so keep a leash on those toddlers and try to keep their pudding eating contests away from your upholstery. 

A $60,000 Hyundai.

What would happen if you put the Mercedes S-Class, the BMW 7-Series, the Lexus LS and the Audi A8 in a horse stable in Korea, put all the keys in a fish bowl, opened the free bar, sat back and saw what happened?

Aside from countless dirty memories that each of the cars would no doubt cherish for the rest of their lives, some manner of illegitimate love child would most likely result from the carnal happenings. As it happens, it would look something like Hyundai's newest luxury sedan, and no i'm not talking about the Genesis.

The Korean auto makers new luxury sedan has been dubbed the Equus, and if you had trouble wrapping your mouth around that, it's Latin for Horse, but if that doesn't help don't worry to much over it, there is a large possibility that Hyundai will swap the nameplate for the western market.

Although unfamiliar to our western shores, the Equus has been a long standing institution in Korea and China, offering a more affordable and familiar luxury alternative to the German elite.

The Equus is newest flagship manifestation of Hyundai's re-born image as a car manufacturer, a re-birth that began with the aptly name Genesis. Focussing on a combination of luxury and build quality, Hyundai, aided by the market gaps created by collapse of the North American auto industry aimed it's well equipped sales weapon straight at the european luxury car giants.

The Equus begins where the Genesis left off, increasing the level of luxury along with the wheelbase (6-inches longer than it's little brother,) placing Hyundai in a league that is as unfamiliar to it, as it's badge is to the companies it will now be competing with, the German luxury aristocracy. Two different capacity choices of V8's will be given to get the horse galloping along, but it will need a little extra under the hood  to make it competitive with the other performance jockeys like Mercedes' AMG version of the S-Class.

The interior is dressed in the usual luxury ingredients of wood, aluminum and leather, with the top of the line model sporting Maybach style reclining rear seats, folding rear work tables, a glovebox ice chest for wine coolers and a rear flat-screen computer syster to watch re-runs of Dog The Bounty Hunter. Driver aids will include a park assist system, adaptive headlights, radar guided cruise control, a lane departure warning system and a collision warning system (a pricy name for what most people would call the combination of a brain, a steering wheel and good anti-lock brakes.)

It all sounds like delicious recipe until you sit down and really think about it, and then the souffle collapses. Every one of the driver aids that listed were pioneered by Mercedes with the iconic S-Class sedan, only they were pioneered in the early years of the last decade, and Mercedes and much of the competition have moved on to bigger and better things. It's a little bit like someone showing up to a party wearing baggy jeans, a backwards red Yankees cap and asking if anyone wants to listen to Rollin' by Limp Bizkut, they'll get laughed at, the promptly asked to leave.

In keeping with recent tradition, the Hyundai badge as we know it is tastefully absent from the front facia, instead it has been replaced with a crest and what appears to be an imitation of the winged lady of Rolls Royce fame, undoubtedly a misshapen homage to her later years, when she was diagnosed with leprosy.

With the Equus set to hit western shores by the late to end of this calender year, prices have been speculated from anywhere around $50, 000 mark to a stomach turning $90, 000. It will be no surprise if the American market has trouble swallowing that price considering of Hyundai's reputation as a cheap alternative at best, the luxury concept may be one to far gone for westerners to grasp.

For such a steep price tag, Hyundai better pray that it's little baby Equus grows into black beauty and not wither into an old, arthritic, half-lame, half-retarded donkey.