2015 Bmw M3 on 2040-cars

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2014 BMW 328d xDrive Sport Wagon

There's a running joke among auto writers that the perfect car would be a diesel-powered, rear-drive wagon with manual transmission and no power accessories whatsoever. It would only be available in brown and would somehow be as fun to drive as a Mazda MX-5 Miata. Makes total sense, right?
Realistically, no manufacturer is ever going to completely fulfill our wishes, no matter how much we beg, plead, kick and scream about our dream car that most of us would actually never buy. The best we can do is hope for a vehicle that mixes some aspects of this ideal journalist's car. And in today's world, that vehicle just might be the BMW 328d xDrive Sport Wagon.
No, it's not available with a manual gearbox, and power can only be sent through an xDrive all-wheel-drive system. It's also not available in brown (although both Mojave Metallic and Sparkling Bronze Metallic are acceptable stand-ins), but it ticks the two main boxes of being a diesel-powered wagon, one of only a couple such models in the United States.

BMW M1 really was the Ultimate Driving Machine

Life giving you lemons? Make lemonade. That's the spirit in Munich that lead to BMW producing the only mid-engined sports car in its 98-year history. The project resulted from a collaboration with Lamborghini (now owned, incidentally, by arch-rival Audi) to meet Group 4 homologation requirements. Lamborghini withdrew, the FIA changed its rules, but BMW built it anyway.
Arguably one of Giorgetto Giugiaro's finest designs, the M1 packed a 3.5-liter inline-six, driving 273 horsepower to the rear wheels through a five-speed manual. The Procar racing version turbocharged that output up to 850 hp and attracted the top drivers in a one-make F1 support race series.
Over the course of three years, the Bavarian automaker only built 456 examples of the M1, and for BMW enthusiasts, there's no vehicle more coveted. But don't take our word for it - let Petrolicious tell one noteworthy owner's tale in the video below.

2015 BMW X4 is a budget X6

We won't argue that crossovers are hugely successful vehicles, with automakers working to provide functional CUVs in a wide range of sizes. But over at BMW, things are just getting out of hand, as evidenced by this new X4 "Sports Activity Coupe" that debuts here at the 2014 New York Auto Show.
BMW is seeing fit to offer vehicles in even the most niche of niches, and the X4 is no exception. Want proof? Have a look at the X4, and the compare it to the X3, the 3 Series Gran Turismo, the 3 Series Sport Wagon, and the 4 Series Gran Coupe. Aside from marginal differences in things like ground clearance and the exact slope of the hatchback, what, exactly, is the difference?
Like the other models we just mentioned, the X4 is powered by either a 2.0-liter turbo-four with 240 horsepower or a more powerful, 3.0-liter turbo-six with 300 horsepower, and unsurprisingly, power is sent to the ground exclusively via the company's xDrive all-wheel-drive system. An eight-speed automatic transmission is the sole gearbox available with either engine. All sounds very familiar, right?