Post Tagged with: "3-series"

Review: 2009 BMW 535xi

By Kevin Harrison

A little while back I reviewed the Cadillac CTS. It was by no means a horrible car, but I gave it a less than stellar rating.

Designed to compete against a BMW 5-series (even more so when it likely will move more upscale once the smaller ATS arrives), it is priced like a 3-series and thus, retains the price advantage.

As I followed sales manager Campbell Harbord out to the back to the dealership to pick up my tester, I had mentioned my review of the CTS and how I was eager to see how it compared.

He stopped and laughed.

“Oh, you consider it to be more of a 3-series competitor then?” I asked.

“We don’t consider Cadillac to be competition for us at all,” Campbell replied.

Bold statement.

Review: 2009 BMW 335i Coupe

When it comes to mid-size luxury cars, the BMW 3-series is often referred to as a benchmark. So I decided to go play around with the 3-series that I want: the 335i coupe. It’s the prettiest of the 3-series variants, and I have been itching to try out the BMW 3.0l twin-turbo ever since I read Peter’s review of the 135i. To shake things up a bit, I brought my wife this time. My thoughts, and hers, after the jump.

Montreal: Canada’s Ville Des Lumieres

This past week I spent a few days in Montreal QC, visiting family. Being a more metropolitan centre than Edmonton (difficult to imagine, I know), I fully expected Montreal to deliver the luxury automotive-spotting goods. And I wasn’t disappointed. The standard cars seemed to be Cees, Threes, and A-Fours – they were a dime a dozen. And not just ratty late 90′s models either, I’m talking about 2009 units here. The latest, greatest.

But it wasn’t all just entry-level exec sedans bumping along the cobblestone streets of Vieux Montreal, there were more outstanding highlights that included Maseratis, Astons, Ferraris, Volkswagens Bentleys, and other tarted-up German whips.

Follow the jump to check out the gallery of the cars I was quick and nimble enough to capture.

Canada Decides: BMW 328xi, Lexus IS250 AWD, Audi A4 2.0T, or Merc C300 4MATIC

Author/Photo Credit: Mark Atkinson

Faced with increasingly tough economic times and plunging marketing budgets, auto manufacturers are becoming even more focused on where they spend their ad dollars. It used to be a given that the world’s largest motorshows would attract the world’s largest automakers. That’s just not the case anymore, as shown by significant car manufacturer absences in Detroit, Tokyo and London, among others.

BMW has long been a believer in the idea of getting customers behind the wheel. That’s why it decided to organize a series of events across Canada to get the word out about the updated 3 Series and how it’s still king amongst its closest competitors. Rather than spending money on a separate event for journalists, select members of the media were invited out during the various days.

BMW Developing New 3 and 4 Cylinder Engines

Sky Motoring is reporting that Bayerische Motoren Werke is working on a five new engines for its 1-series and 3-series models. You haven’t heard of Sky Motoring before? Me neither. But they’ve probably never heard of CarEnvy.ca, so I guess that’s not a huge deal.

On the surface, this news isn’t that suprising. BMW is known and praised for its engines, as I found out when I drove the N54 in the 135i, so hearing that they’re pumping R&D funds into engine development is less surprising than finding out that the new Star Trek movie was as good as the previews made it out to be. The interesting part of this BMW news is the (claimed) minute displacement relative to the (claimed) prodigious power output.

A full outline of the 3 and 4-bangers is after the jump.

BMW Wants To Show Canadians How Good A 3-Series Really Is

So, you’ve got two hours to kill? Well BMW is asking you to reconsider watching re-runs of Seinfeld all day and instead, they want you to use your time to drive their cars. And their competition’s cars. For those two hours. For free. For Canadians only. For serious.

You see, the 3 series is considered the benchmark in the luxury sport sedan segment. Audi, Lexus, Infiniti and even Cadillac have long been plotting to take BMW’s crown, and they all think they have done it with their respective compact sedans.

Turns out that BMW doesn’t like this, and is going straight to YOU, the consumer, to prove that their 3 series is still the king.

Find out how you can get in on the action, after the jump.

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Tested: 2009 Audi S5

Audi has sort of a mixed history for creating coupes. Unlike, say, BMW, there really hasn’t been a regular two-door model of the A4 since it was introduced in 1994. Previous to that we got the Audi 80-based ‘Coupe’, which was continued in convertible form for a couple years, but it was sold in North America with some pretty anaemic engines.

And no, I’m not forgetting about the TT, but that’s more a sports car comparable to a Z4 than, say, a 328is.

You really have to go back to the original rally legend, the Coupe Quattro of the ‘80s, to find a two-door Audi with style, performance and room for four. That’s over 25 years! What took them so long??

Thankfully, Audi got themselves back in the game with the new A5 and S5, taking careful aim at the aforementioned 3 Series and its variants. And since the S5 is the more sporting version, it’s the one CarEnvy readers will appreciate the most.

Leaked: Mercedes E500 Coupe, supposedly…

While barely concealed spyshots have been circulating the blogosphere for a couple of weeks, these are the first press shots of the upcoming E500 Coupe (formerly known as the CLK). We think. These are either the first shots or they are fantastic photochops. Either way they’re good enough for us. And that means that they’re good enough for you. Even if these aren’t from the Merc Institute of Press Stuff (MIPS), they’re probably not far off what the real deal will look like.

From our first impression, the nose job is the only downfall of the design. The quad headlights with the weird little LED lights underneath are a little too much of an Audi rip-off for us. There are redeeming points though. The muscular rear wheel arches are particularly strong, as is the profile. But, the rear is kinda dull in a 3-series-esque way.  The new E Coupe should make for a compelling A5/S5 competitor in the premium large coupe segment though. It’s about time too, the aging CLK (other than the superb Black variant) needed a refresh badly. Follow the jump for more pictures of the big E.