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BMW preparing two concepts for Villa d'Este

Every spring, the finest automobiles ever to grace tarmac gather on the shores of Lake Como for the Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este. It's a chance for the most beautiful classics to compete for awards and for automakers and design studios to show off their concept cars under the soft light of the Italian sun. But while most of the vehicles old and new that show up for the concours are ones we've seen before, BMW takes things a step further.
As patron of the concorso d'eleganza for the past ten years, BMW regularly cooks up something new for the glamorous extravaganza. Last year it teamed up with Pininfarina for the Gran Lusso Coupé and revealed it alongside the Concept 90 motorcycle. The year before that came the BMW Zagato Coupe, preceded by the 328 Hommage and the M1 Hommage (pictured above) before it.
The theme for this year's event is the Roaring Twenties. BMW may not have been known back then on the same level as Bugatti or Duesenberg, but Rolls-Royce sure was.

Gus Van Sant casts the BMW i8 in soft light

BMW has spent the better part of a century building its reputation with fossil-burning transportation, but now it's banking heavily on the success of its new i family of electric vehicles. In order to succeed, it will need to sell examples of the i3, but sell the idea with the i8. And in order to do so, it is going to need some out-of-the-box promotional thinking. And that's just what it seems to have done with this latest campaign of television commercials.
The series of three (or at least that's how many have been released thus far) ads wax more poetic than most of the car ads we've seen. But while they might skimp on the technical details, they don't skip over the talent. The videos are the work of Oscar-nominated director Gus Van Sant, the cinematic artist best known for films like Good Will Hunting, Milk and Finding Forrester.
Van Sant has also solicited the voices of Sam Hazeldine (Caleb from Resurrection), Sting's daughter Mickey Sumner (Sophie from Frances Ha) and Michael Pitt (Jimmy from Boardwalk Empire), but doesn't hide them behind the microphone in the recording studio. Instead they serve as the face of Bavaria's new hybrid sports car, and the results are rather stunning. See for yourself in the trio of videos below.

Autoblog Podcast #387

Episode #387 of the Autoblog podcast is here, and this week, Dan Roth, Steven Ewing and Michael Zak talk about more General Motors recalls, upgrades and a diesel for the 2015 Ford Focus ST, and the BMW M235i scoring ahead of the Porsche 911 and Chevrolet Corvette Stingray in Consumer Reports testing. We start with what's in the garage and finish up with some of your questions, and for those of you who hung with us live on our UStream channel, thanks for taking the time. Check out the new rundown below with times for topics, and you can follow along down below with our Q&A. Thanks for listening! Autoblog Podcast #387: The video meant to be presented here is no longer available. Sorry for the inconvenience. Topics: GM recalls 8.4M more cars in North America Ford Focus ST upgrades and diesel CR says M235i is better than 911 In the Autoblog Garage: 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee EcoDiesel 2014 Honda Accord Coupe V6 6MT Long-Term 2015 Subaru WRX 2014 Subaru XV Crosstrek Hybrid Hosts: Dan Roth, Steven Ewing, Michael Zak Runtime: 01:35:26 Rundown: Intro & Garage - 00:00 GM Recalls - 26:26 2015 Ford Focus ST - 41:56 BMW M235i - 50:24 Q&A - 59:16 Get the podcast: [UStream] Listen live on Mondays at 10 PM Eastern at UStream [iTunes] Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast in iTunes [RSS] Add the Autoblog Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator [MP3] Download the MP3 directly Feedback: Email: Podcast at Autoblog dot com Review the show in iTunes Government/Legal Podcasts BMW Ford GM Honda Jeep Subaru Safety Diesel Vehicles Performance bmw m235i