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Bristol returning under BMW power

BMW has had its hand in reviving once-great British automakers, and now its playing its part in the rebirth of another. That marque is Bristol Cars, the automotive offshoot of the Bristol Aeroplane Company. Bristol hand-made luxury sports cars between 1945 and 2011 when it went belly-up, and ever since there's been an effort to bring it back. That effort is now picking up steam, and is set to launch later this year – marking the 70th anniversary of the marque's founding. It's tentatively known as Project Pinnacle, and while future versions are slated to pack plug-in hybrid power developed in collaboration with Bristol's sister company Frazer-Nash (which is now focused on battery technology), the first new Bristol in a dozen years is slated to pack BMW power. Details accompanying the announcement below are few and far between, but one way or another, it won't be the first time BMW will have played a part in breathing new life into a British automaker. The Bavarian company of course revived Mini, and made Rolls-Royce what it is today, but was also was briefly the custodian of Rover, Land Rover and Bentley, and has been linked to a potential (if unrealized) effort to bring back Triumph. Its role in Bristol's rebirth under Project Pinnacle may be less involved than all of those, but at very least we'll know that the new British GT will have a proper engine under the hood. BRISTOL CARS CONFIRMS POWERTRAIN FOR 70th ANNIVERSARY PROJECT PINNACLE • First new Bristol car in more than a decade to feature BMW powerplant • High performance powertrain earmarks resumption of the history between Bristol, Frazer-Nash and BMW dating back to 1930s London, England, June 2015 – Iconic British carmaker, Bristol Cars, makes the second in a series of announcements today about its first new car in more than a decade, codenamed Project Pinnacle. Project Pinnacle, which is set for launch later this year, will be a 70th anniversary celebration model, referencing Bristol Cars' rich heritage and executed as a modern take on the best of British craftsmanship, engineered to excite and satisfy as a high performance Bristol car. Bristol Cars is deeply proud to announce that the machinery underpinning this high performance new vehicle will be a BMW powerplant. The result will a sublime British sportscar with characteristics cultured uniquely for the first new Bristol since 2004.

BMW i3 with range extender could arrive after HOV stickers run out in CA

We will weep for the BMW i3 REx owner with ticket #40,001 for California's green HOV stickers. While the standard-issue battery-electric i3 has been deemed eligible for the state's white stickers, which allow for owners to drive in HOV lanes solo, the proverbial jury of the California Air Resources Board (CARB) is still out on the BMW i3 REx, which will have a little-bitty range-extender on board, Transport Evolved says. The issue is that, while there is an unlimited number of white stickers for pure EVs such as the Nissan Leaf and Tesla Model S, the state has limited the number of green stickers, which grant solo-HOV access to plug-in hybrids and extended-range plug-ins, to 40,000. And with almost 29,000 green stickers given out as of the end of last year to cars such as the Chevrolet Volt and the Toyota Prius Plug In, they may run out within two months. The other key point is that the waiting list for the i3 with a range extender is running at about six months as of January, that could cause a bit of hand-wringing among folks looking to buy the REx. BMW said earlier this year that the extended-range version of the i3 would qualify for white stickers because the car is a so-called BEVx, meaning that its range-extender's full-tank range is less than the electric motor's single-charge range. BMW designed the i3 with a small range-extender tank of just 2.4 gallons, but the automaker estimated that California's green stickers wouldn't run out until the end of 2014.

BMW gets exemption to allow self-parking 7 Series in US [w/video]

The US-spec 2016 BMW 7 Series is gorged with enough technology for it to qualify as a finalist in our Technology of the Year award. But not all of the tricky bits found on the European-spec car are offered Stateside, like the automated Park Assistant Plus that lets a driver remotely move the car into and out of a parking space using the touchscreen keyfob. The reason is Section S5.3 of Standard No. 114 of the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, which dictates that "the service brake... be depressed before the transmission can be shifted out of park.'" Since Park Assistant Plus is remote controlled, the brake pedal isn't pressed when the car shifts from Park into a gear. Automobile reports that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has conceded the law is too vague, and granted BMW's request for an exemption to bring the convenience feature to the US. NHTSA said that the point of the law was to have brake actuation during the transition from Park to a forward or reverse gear, not to insist that someone actually presses the brake pedal. BMW said it plans to bring Park Assistant Plus to the US soon, but the carmaker doesn't yet have a firm timeline for the move. To us that seems like a small yet significant victory as the marketplace fills up with cars that have abilities beyond the current laws to manage. Now if we could just get that whole FMVSS headlight issues worked out and enjoy some of that tasty Matrix and MultiBeam lighting. You can watch a video of the BMW system in action in the video below.