In this series of op-eds, our car-industry insider will spot trends, give you a taste of upcoming products, and forecast brands' futures. He brings more than two decades of experience working with American and European brands to this endeavor, and will be reporting from the Continent. In order to give honest opinions without worrying about political ramifications at the office, he is keeping his identity a secret. Some say he runs an eel-pie shop in Leeds; that he waxes his cats...oh, you know the deal. Presenting, for the first time, Motive's Oracle.

Do a little experiment for me if you will. The next time you're driving to/from work on any major road or freeway in any metro area, especially in the 'smile' section of America (down the east coast, across the south, and up the west coast), start looking around and see if you can go a minute, one whole minute, without seeing a BMW. I'm betting you won't be able to, as they're absolutely everywhere. In the blink of an eye, they went from being fairly rare, usually driven by enthusiasts with a bit of money, to ubiquitous, driven by everybody with a bit of credit.

I know there are plenty of true BMW lovers, enthusiasts who willingly pay the prices demanded because they cherish the premium experience these cars supply, their combo of tactile feel and luxury no other car maker in the world can duplicate, regardless of how much they've tried over the years. I'm not talking about you. You're just becoming a smaller and smaller piece of any ever-growing pie...

FULL STORY...

Edit after reading article:

"Bavaria is the German equivalent of Texas."
-some German guy, can't remember his name.

"To annoy Hammond, I decided to dress like an M3 driver before taking the wheel."
-Jeremy Clarkson

BMW hating and stereotyping aside, I like Audi because it's more understated (I used to like BMWs, but Bangle has bangled them), and Alfas because they're just f*cking beautiful, no matter how bad they are mechanically.

Modified by Entwerfer des Audis at 10:54 PM 6/1/2008

I could say a Volvo C30 might be a similar beast as I have yet to see one on the road!

i do love alfa though, and i'm too young to have experienced them the first time around so i'm very excited for the upcoming arrival. i need to experience all this "passion and soul" everyone talks about...

GO HOKIES!!

I recommended a few cars that blended practicallity, value, performance and reliability to them. Some of these were used cars and I believed all of the choices had great value to them. I was sure I convinced him these were sure winners. However, I visited them again a few months later and they ended up leasing a new 2007 BMW 3-series for their daughter.

I asked him about how he narrowed the choices down, and it ended up being about new-ness and overall "BMW-ness". I thought those were completely absurd reasons, especially since it was a car for college.

Of couse a lot of college students I meet nowadays are driving BMW's and flaunt them like no other. So maybe it was fitting to do so.

right.

So those who do jump ship to alfa would be those who are looking for the next new thing. No review of any alfa, except alfa romeo 8c competeitozozozonenoe (analyze this/that anyone?), praised them for driving dynamics (or i haven't seen one). To me, this article suggests that all the i'm-cool-because-i-drive-a-bmw guys will move on to alfas because it's the next exclusive cool thing to own. Next thing you know, alfas won't be so exclusive or new, and then once they become big and grow in line up to include likes of SAV, SAC or whatever, someone like bangle will ruin alfas, then we'll all look for the next alfa or the next next bmw.

btw, alfas are STUNNING. I especially love the brera. I wouldn't mind driving one if it drove half as well as it looks.

Modified by phazedkid at 1:58 AM 6-2-2008

Quote, originally posted by JimmyGolf »

haha, right. "True BMW guys" are all gonna jump ship and flock to $50 grand front-drivers with questionable reliability. right.

Absolutely. I live in a country where you can buy Alfas, and I am a genuine driving enthusiast. I don't own an Alfa.

Don't get me wrong, they look fantastic. But they do not necessarily make for a great ownership experience. Having an old Alfa roadster that won't start may have been charming in the 70s but people don't accept that today. Reliability is a major issue - everyone I know with an Alfa spends plenty of time at the dealership having new engines and electrics fitted. Build quality, though better now, is also patchy. Then there is depreciation. Buy an Alfa and you are setting fire to cash. 25% residual after 3 years is about standard.

Alfa do not produce what I want either (8C does not count); the Spyder looks stunning but they don't offer one with enough power and its FWD or a meidocre 4WD set up. You get R32 performance in the 3.2, but Alfa doesn't build anything above that. The Spyder is also alot more dull to drive than you think it's going to be when you see one. It's a rival to a Megane CC or 307 CC rather than any BM/Audi/Merc.

The 159 is the one that might work. It looks brilliant and is a genuine alternative to a 3er or a C Class, but again, over here you will loose millions on it and it probably won't start when you need to go to work.

IMO, Alfa sits more in the gap between Peugeot/VW and Merc/BMW.

Not that FWD is a bad thing, but that's certainly not what the "true BMW guys" want. They're going for driving dynamics, not being weird on purpose.

Also, I personally find modern Alfas ugly.

This sort of goes to what I was going to say.

If you're trying to be unique through your car, you're not unique. If you choose anything based solely on it not being chosen by the masses, you're as unique as every emo kid with a spiked bracelet and black hair carefully covering one eye, and your choice is as meaningful as the narrator's choice of dinette set in Fight Club.

Buy what you want to drive. I highly doubt that Alfa's predominately-FWD lineup is going to attract many converts from any sporty or luxury brand for a substantial length of time, but I've been wrong before. I know I'm never again buying a non-beater car that isn't RWD, so unless they offer one of those, someone else, likely BMW, will be getting my business.

Quote, originally posted by Corbic »

Your an idiot.

Quote, originally posted by dirtyfingers »

Nice read I could say a Volvo C30 might be a similar beast as I have yet to see one on the road!

I get to see mine everyday!

As for the FWD issue, most of the people driving BMWs today probably couldn't even tell you which wheels are powered in their current car.

I think that's the point.... people think new Alfas are going to be modern versions this:

...and they aren't.

Part of this article that laments the addition of several new BMW models reads like the constant complaining by the "true Porsche guys" about the Cayenne (and Panamera?). They claim it dilutes the brand and brings in people to the brand that "don't really appreciate what a (real) Porsche is all about" or some such nonsense.

And in both cases, the same point is missed by these people: car companies ultimately exist to make money. If they only catered to the miniscule enthusiast market, they would not be as successful as they are today. Besides, do you honestly think "true BMW guys" made up anywhere near the majority even in the pre-SAV era? I very much doubt it (at least not after the brand was well-established here as being a serious high end player).

I don't get how the writer thinks that because BMW is immensely popular now (including those people that may not appreciate every single detail of the BMW driving experience), it somehow makes BMW vehicles less of enthusiast oriented vehicles.

Can you still get manuals? Yes. (Hell, they still offer them in the 5-Series.) Are they still great handling machines? By all accounts. Are their M-Cars still world class peformers? No question there.

So what exactly is the problem? Think of it this way: Just because they have an X3 in the lineup, it doesn't make the M3 any worse or less "enthusiast-friendly".

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Tso's shell is mmm, so hell schism.

If the author's reason not to buy a BMW is because it's not exclusive enough, how is that any different than the BMW driver who buys one because it is exclusive enough?

Reality check: it's not. It's just as assininely pretentious, if not more so.

Passatworld Mrs 1.8T
CarDomain Blog
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Catherine--

I don't think it's about that. The thrust of the article, as I saw it, was that chasing volume can have disastrous effects. Cadillac started its long descent the moment it produced one more car than the market would bear. Jag died for good the moment Reitzle declared that it would double in volume in half a decade come hell or high water. The Oracle's crystal ball (*makes spooky noises with mouth*) tells him that BMW is on a rather unbridled volume push. This may be fine as long as the brand hews to its core values, but isn't exclusivity one of these?

Modified by eddie@motivemag at 8:04 AM 6-2-2008

Apparently not.

Exclusivity is fine for the exotic and ultraluxury brands but for a relatively mainstream luxury brand there's no place for embracing "exclusivity".

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Tso's shell is mmm, so hell schism.

Da Bears

Sempre Tifosi

Alfa has never made amazing cars. I've driven a few and been left very uninspired.

BMW's HAVE BECOME HEAVY, DISCONNECTED, AND UGLY and they're one of the fastest growing auto manufacters. People love BMW's for everything I've come to hate them for. Cars aren't designed for the enthusiast, and BMW has it spot on to what the average person wants. BMW's are still scene with as "status" cars and just because there are more doesn't mean that will change. Build quality is great compared to most and they look and feel good to the average person. Most importantly of all BMW has a reputation built since the 2002 among American drivers and Alfa having failed already isn't going to be much of a threat.

I wouldn't buy an BMW newer than an e34, and maybe an e39 touring just since wagons are sexy. I'm not a fan of BMW's new cars but I'm a die hard old school guy and will never sell my satin black e21 with no power steering abs or power anything, I don't even have a radio and my weight of 2300lbs just makes it that much better.

Modified by Gruppe 5 at 9:02 AM 6-2-2008

Quote, originally posted by Gruppe 5 »

I wouldn't buy an BMW newer than an e34, and maybe an e39 touring just since wagons are sexy. I'm not a fan of BMW's new cars but I'm a die hard old school guy and will never sell my satin black e21 with no power steering abs or power anything, I don't even have a radio and my weight of 2300lbs just makes it that much better.

But you will never buy any new car from any manufacturer - their products will never interest you. BMW have done what every firm have done; innovated to make their cars comfier, better equipped, safer, faster, more economical, more environmentally friendly, more desirable. It's business. Nobody (except a couple of TCLers) would buy a brand new E21; not that you could build it anyway, safety regs would kill it instantly.

Remember your E21 was not a basic, light, gadget free car in its day; it's just how cars were, and times have changed. The difference is that as BMW have evolved to give the people what they want (Bangle excluded) , they have still maintained a healthy enthusiasm for building excellent drivers cars. If you as a driver had to choose between an E92, an A5 and a CLK, most would go for the BM. Not for 'image' or because of who drives them but because it's the best to drive.

Alfa trades on style and passion but most of the cars are FWD middle of the road fare (though not all - I like the 159). I think so many of the Alfa fanbois will be grossly disappointed when they drive a Brera and find it pretty dull.

Quote, originally posted by Lepsis3942 »

Hey Ian, what was the only car he was able to hit the apple on the apex of the turn with? Hmm? If my memory serves right it was the.....oh wait...THE BMW. That's right, BMW forevah http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...lated Modified by Lepsis3942 at 11:15 PM 6-1-2008

Actually, they never tried it with the Audi, and furthermore Clarkson was driving the Merc and the Stig drove the Bimmer. Your argument is invalidated.

It's not exclusivity that makes a car great or even great to own. In Europe, BMW is hardly the boutique brand we make it out to be over here, and in Italy, Alfa is nothing all that special. Neither suffers for their lack of exclusivity in their home markets. If anything, the drive to sell more cars in the home market brings reliability and performance that are the desireable attributes in a semi-exotic over here. Therein lies the rub - once those makes set their sights on the US market, it's sink or swim time with the big dogs.

What kills of all those good things is not chasing volume per se, but chasing volume in the big dumb American market. And there is the issue with BMW. The cars are still great, just far more saleable in our market. To get there, they are dumbed down to the point that an average person can drive them. They are no less the performance machines of the past (seriously, they aren't nearly as bad as we make them sound ), they are just everywhere, and you can't quite feel the pebbles like you used to.

I predict.....

The 8C will come in and wow a bunch of sportscar writers, then Marc Phelan will whine about its miserably awful bumpsteer on 75 between the Bridge and Gibralter. Alfa will try to make the car more palatable (because you need good reviews ), maybe bring over a "normal" sedan, and Alfa will be dumbed down, too.

Passatworld Mrs 1.8T
CarDomain Blog
Bolt. Recaro recovery, bow headliners, Cabriolet fixin's and other misc hard and soft goods for VWs

Somehow, you just don't want to associate with these types of people.

Modified by PhilGood at 11:06 AM 6-2-2008

Caddy, Jag, Merc in the mid 90's, ALL these brands suffered from lack of the financial commitment it takes to expand your lineup. Going back to Cadillac, look at the current and past gen CTS--both good products, both an example of a lux marque trying to expand sales volume the RIGHT way, with good execution. Wrong execution? The X type. At the end of the day, its about product, not some aura of exclusivity. Hell, in Birmingham, I see a RR or Bentley GT almost every time I go--doesn't make it any less of an event when I see one---because I will never be able to own one. And for a large portion of the car buying public, the same will apply to BMW, etc.

Modified by Cormega at 2:24 PM 6-2-2008