2010 Bmw M3 on 2040-cars

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History of BMW touring cars looks splendid in Adrenalin trailer

More high-quality documentaries about the history of motorsports are always welcome. When thinking about racing, we generally focus on moving forward to go a little faster or shave a tenth of a second off a lap. There's not much time to look backward. It's too bad, because there are so many fantastic stories from the sport's history. Thankfully, an upcoming doc is taking on the challenge of telling some of these tales, and it looks like a movie not to miss, especially for BMW fans.
Adrenalin - The BMW Touring Car Story mixes high-quality, vintage footage with new interviews from many of the drivers of these machines to craft what looks like a fantastic experience. Covering the period from the '60s to the modern DTM era, just the trailer shows racing from the 2002, 3.0 CSL and of course the E30 chassis M3 of the '80s. You also get to hear from legends behind the wheel like Hans-Joachim Stuck, Johnny Cecotto and Joachim Winkelhock telling their stories.
Adrenalin comes out in November on DVD, Blu-Ray and on-demand. Check out its trailer above for a taste at what it's aiming for. The documentary definitely looks like one to watch.

BMW names new head of M division

BMW's performance division has been run by Dr. Friedrich Nitschke since 2011, developing, among other products, the new M3 and M4. But soon the good doctor will be retiring, and BMW has just named his successor.
Taking Nitschke's place as chairman of BMW M GmbH will be Franciscus van Meel (pictured at right), who until recently served as managing director of Audi Quattro GmbH - the rival outfit that makes Ingolstadt's performance models, including the R8 supercar and RS line of performance models.
Van Meel will join BMW on October 1, presumably to learn the ropes from Nitschke before the 59-year-old executive steps down at the end of the year. Back in January, Audi named Heinz Peter Hollwerweger as head of Quattro GmbH and reassigned van Meel to its Beijing R&D center, a role which evidently didn't suit him as well as creating Autobahn-storming German muscle cars.

BMW's Quandt family in hot water over Merkel campaign contributions

The mysterious and elusive Quandt family is in hot water again, nearly two years after its Nazi connections during World War II were exposed. The German family's patriarch, Herbert Quandt, nearly single-handedly saved BMW from being bought out by Daimler-Benz in 1959. Now, three living family members own nearly half of the German brand, and stand accused of buying votes with donations to the party of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, mere days ahead of a European Union vote that would cap vehicle emissions.
Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union accepted three donations, one from each shareholding member of the Quandt family.
Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union accepted three donations, one from each shareholding member of the Quandt family, totaling 690,000 euros ($935,000), on October 9. The CDU, for what it's worth, claim the donations weren't related to any political decisions and that the family have been donors for years. A Quandt family spokesperson, meanwhile, said that the family had been waiting for Germany's September 22 elections to pass before making a large contribution to the CDU.