Innehållsförteckning för March 2023 från TOTAL BMW

I know I already wished you a happy new year in the last issue, but I’m going to say it again, properly, because I am actually writing this in January, so it feels rather more real for me - so Happy New Year once more! As you read this, we will be almost one whole month through 2023, and I hope it’s been a good one for you and a solid start to the year. Santa was kind enough to bring me a few goodies, though he wasn’t willing to stump up for the custom headlights I’m having made for my E92 M3. He’s also not going to pay for the M235i’s seemingly endless list of repairs (check out my running report in this issue’s Our Cars to see what…

When it comes to the M3, BMW has been rather indecisive about what body styles can wear the badge. The first-gen car was available in two-door and convertible forms before BMW added a four-door saloon for the E36, and then cruelly took it away when the E46 M3 launched, finally deciding it deserved to be part of the family once the E9x range was introduced. This means that if you happen to be an E46 M3 fan, like most of you reading this will be, and you want more doors, you are straight out of luck. That is, of course, unless you decide to do something about it yourself… Most of the time, you will find Shawn Robertson (@shawnrphotography) busy doing software development, but when he’s not doing that, you…

The first BMW to land on the southern tip of Africa was, in fact, not a car but a motorcycle brought along by a German immigrant in 1928. By 1932 another German, Gunter Ludwig, started importing motorcycles to SA as the sole BMW concessionaire. Ludwig, a garagiste, had formalised his small business the year before, naming it Club Garage, as it was positioned close to the Zwartkop Country Club just outside of Pretoria. In 1957 it became Club Motors, and by 1958 it imported the first BMW car, the Isetta, and continued to import BMWs until 1968. Ludwig and his son, together with prominent Pretoria business mogul Johannes Pretorius and several associates, identified an opportunity to manufacture BMWs in SA when BMW AG took over the bankrupt Glas factory in…

OUR CARS @buffycarjourno The thrill of a ‘new’ used car purchase is often short-lived. Once you get it home, you start poking around and finding things that weren’t immediately obvious to you when you went to see it and, inevitably, your judgement was a little clouded by the excitement of buying a shiny new thing. In my defence, I did spend some time having a proper look around the F22 when I went to view it in its Birmingham home before agreeing to buy it, which is when I spotted a few small battle scars from its daily driven life, but they didn’t bother me because I was planning to use the M235i as my ‘daily’. I don’t drive it every day, but I wanted it for everyday use if…

@jasondoddphotos As we come to another new year, where did 2022 go? The past year for the M2 has been a heap of fun, with two track days, a jaunt across the water to France and a serious upgrade in the M car’s overall performance. The most notable change for me was the new set of rubber, with a full set of Michelin PS4s fitted by my go-to garage, Tyrepoint in Maidstone, Kent. These were fitted after a track day at Circuit Charade in ClermontFerrand in France; the Pirelli P Zeros had managed an admirable 18,000 miles, and some hot, sticky tarmac around the amazing French circuit was the perfect way to say goodbye to them. The PS4s made the car’s ride and handling so much more on point; this…

ALPINA B5 Super saloon. Two words that should get the automotive juices of every petrolhead flowing. From the Lotus Carlton to untold AMGs, the debate will rage over which is, or was, the best and undoubtedly, the one name that will crop up time and again is the BMW M5. For nigh-on 40 years, the M-powered 5 Series has been the car to beat, but for those of us who might prefer something a little bit more distinctive, something with a smidgen of je ne sais quoi, there’s another name to throw into the melting pot: Alpina. Based just down the road from BMW’s Munich HQ in the small town of Buchloe, Alpina has been fettling fast Fives for even longer than BMW. When BMW was just getting around to…

WIDE-BODY E30 Blue sky thinking, brainstorming, thinking outside the box. These may all be the most lamentable cliches of the marketing world, but when it comes to getting customer eyeballs on your product or business, it really does pay to do something different. And when Polish bodywork specialist, Michael Fox (@fox. garage), moved to Basildon to open up his own bodyshop, he knew he needed something with real wow factor to get his clients chomping at the bit. “I’ve always been a fan of BMWs, especially the E30 generation - there’s just something about the shape that appeals to me - and I’ve owned a string of them in the past,” says the 34-year-old panel perfectionist. “I’d love a genuine E30 M3 one day, but the prices have just gone…

E36 TOURING when it comes to sheer entertainment, few forms of motorsport offer as much, in terms of absolute thrills, as drifting does – the sight and sound of outrageous machines sliding through corners at obscene angles, walls of smoke in their wake, is simply awesome. It’s spectacle of the highest order, and if watching it is exciting, getting behind the wheel of a fullon drift build gets the adrenaline pumping like little else, as Damon Murphy (@damon_murphy_ drifting) will eagerly attest. On a day-to-day basis, you will find Damon driving something a little more sedate, with him working in the transport industry and currently working up to his Class 1 license, but his personal forms of transport over the years have always included something spicy. His first car was…

Fitting a bigger turbo is almost guaranteed to give your car a horsepower boost or certainly the potential to make more power. But it’s not often a simple case of bolting on a new blower and forgetting about everything else; to optimise the performance potential of that new turbocharger a few other upgrades are usually needed along the way too. While the turbo upgrade steals the limelight, little thought is given to the supporting mods. But the truth is, they are equally as important. Without them, your shiny new turbo won’t work as well as it should. To help point us in the right direction, we spoke to TurboZentrum. The company’s roots may be in turbocharger upgrades, but with the UK’s biggest online shop for products and accessories in the…

OUR CARS @totalbmwmag With the E36 in our care, it was time to get stuck into giving it a little bit of TLC, and that meant popping over to my local BMW specialist, BMSport, for a once-over. As I mentioned in the last report, my non-technical personal inspection had already made me aware that it would need a few things. This included the wipers, as they were hanging on for dear life and not in the state one would want during a typical British winter, along with a few cosmetic touches. Speaking of cosmetics, the E36 is very tidy on the outside, having clearly not led a particularly stressful life. I am assuming it was one far away from the misery of inner city parking, further aided by the silver…

I nearly bought myself an early Christmas present midway through December, but in the end, sanity prevailed, and I’m not quite sure whether I made the right decision or not. I now spend half the time kicking myself and the other half thanking my lucky stars that I didn’t go mad and pull the trigger. I am, of course talking about buying another car, one to replace the 530i Touring. I’ve been wittering on for ages about wanting something equipped with a V8 before we’re not allowed to drive them anymore, and when an F11 550i Touring popped up on my Collecting Cars notifications, I felt a twinge of excitement. It looked to be a very highspec machine with Comfort seats, a head-up display and switchable dampers, and from the…

We are putting together a directory of BMW clubs from around the world, and we want you to be part of it! Just send us an email with the name of your club, its location, and your social media details and website if you have one, and we’ll add it to our directory! We’ll also be putting your clubs in the spotlight, so if you’d like to see your club mentioned in the magazine, send us a write-up of no more than 500 words about what your club gets up to, along with some hi-res photos, and we’ll get it in the magazine for you! Get in touch: Tbmw.ed@kelsey.co.uk…

BMW has chosen the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show to reveal its i Vision Dee concept. The name ‘Dee’ stands for Digital Emotional Experience, and according to BMW, its aim is to create an even stronger bond between people and their cars going forward. While traditional BMW enthusiasts might find the creation somewhat questionable, the most important takeaway is that this concept car is showcasing future technology that will appear in the Neue Klasse models, which are due to launch in 2025. BMW will provide further insights and glimpses of the revolutionary vehicle concept of the Neue Klasse throughout 2023. In the i Vision Dee, the head-up display is taken to the next level, and projection across the entire width of the windscreen allows information to be displayed on the…

FIRST DRIVE Profitability: that’s what cars such as the BMW X7 are all about. SUVs, in general, are more than a little responsible for the company’s healthy bottom line, as evidenced by the existence of X models 1 through 7 (not to mention the range-topping XM that goes on sale in 2023). And, while there are likely to be more than a few dyed-in-the-wool BMW enthusiasts reading this magazine and grumbling about the change in the manufacturer’s line-up in recent years, they’re equally likely to be delighted that BMW can afford to invest so much money in its more sporting models and the ever-expanding reach of the M division. With all that in mind, at the introduction of the updated X7 in America, the company openly admitted that one of…

F10 550i Is there such a thing as too much power? Perhaps when it’s causing absolute corruption - as the old saying goes - and, perhaps, when you’re attempting, and failing, to put a few hundred horses to the tarmac via the rear wheels and not ideal conditions, but otherwise, no. Power is fun (in general), it makes cars exciting, and it makes driving a real thrill, and these days, you need a lot of it because everyone else has lots of it too. These days no one gets out of bed for a hot hatch with less than 300hp, and if your performance saloon isn’t bringing north of 500hp to the party, there’s no point even turning up. Nick Gonzalez III (@euro_connection_autoklasse) knows this all too well because, for…

SOUL SIBLINGS No longer contemporary models, both these popular BMW M cars are of a certain age - one on the cusp of acquiring classic status and the other just a little further away. And the very best examples of BMW’s extrovert E46 M3 Cabriolet and driver-focused 1M Coupé lready proving popular with collectors. But, despite coming from a similar era, these two Motorsport models fulfilled very different briefs and never overlapped in production. However, they do now overlap in price. Less sought-after than its coupe cousin, the biggerselling E46 Cab is currently the more affordable option. However, with the finest examples of BMW’s early ’00s M3 drop-top now changing hands for more than some leggier 1M Coupés, those seeking an appreciating M Car should be considering both. And if…

Once the fastest accelerating diesel car in the world, BMW’s E60 535d was the definitive fast diesel saloon and now, you can buy a good example for less than five grand. With in-gear acceleration that still impresses today, it’s great value for money, and despite the car’s impressive performance, it could return as much as 40mpg on longer journeys. Better still, a simple remap will deliver massive performance, with around 350bhp and 510lb ft of torque, and both SE and Sport versions possess impressive specs. The range-topping diesel in BMW’s fifth-generation E60 range, the 535d was manufactured between 2004 and 2010 and came with a six-speed auto transmission, iDrive as standard, a 6.5” display screen, Bluetooth, and voice control. Additional goodies included BMW Assist, automatic air conditioning, 17” alloys, metallic…

It never fails to amaze me how indifferent some folks are to the tyres their car rolls on. Take my sister, for example. She drives around in a £60k Lexus, yet the tyres it wears, now that the OEM set is no more, are manufactured by one of those obscure-sounding Chinese brands such as Joygrip or similar. 2.2 tonnes of prime Japanese SUV (the ride on this thing really is lovely, too, although the infotainment makes me ill), but the stopping distances in the wet are truly shocking. To say nothing of the -8.5°C temps we’ve experienced recently. You’d think people would care more about the four orbs which connect them with the tarmac and opt against a choice which aquaplanes at the slightest sign of a rain shower. Sis…