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Sedans Luxury Performance Sedans
9978 messages, Last post on Nov 02, 2009 at 1:30 PM
You are in the Sedans Forum. Your Hosts are pat & karens
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Replying to: cdnpinhead (Oct 14, 2006 4:09 pm) I'm well beyond bitter. I bought into the original concept of a BMW competitor from the U.S., and ended up with a car that you have to review the depreciation numbers to fully appreciate. Depreciation aside, I wanted to get in on the ground floor with a vehicle that would improve year-over-year for decades. Yeah, I hear you. Too bad we still have to wait decades for them to earn our trust. …and blasting across Texas at 85 (80 is legal -- God bless Texas) on I-10 was pure pleasure. On Earth as it is in Texas! 
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Replying to: cdnpinhead (Oct 14, 2006 4:09 pm) Oh, wow! The Lincoln that came out in 1999 as a 2000 year model and became Motor Trend's 2000 Car of the Year? That was a great American automobile moment! American car version of "Float like a butterfly. Sting like a bee." Relatively light for an LPS, at just under 3700 lb, good power with V6 or V8, and something like BMW's 50/50 front/rear weight balance. I saw a 2001 V8 in the spring, at an Infiniti dealership -- 74K miles, asking $16,000., if I'm recalling correctly. I had once driven a V6 (a used 2001 I talked my BMW dealer into letting me have as a loaner) with the German-made Getrag gearbox which was very smooth, and tight at the same time. Shifting gears was delightful, and although almost a year separated that drive from the test-drive of the V8 with a automatic recently, my impression is that the straight-line acceleration of the stick-shift V6 was as good as that of the V8 with an automatic transmission. That was a lot of car for a low $30K price tag, wasn't it? How bad could the depreciation have been? Or is the bitterness that you were ready to join them in a real American attempt to produce an LPS that driving enthusiasts could love (and, ironically, Lincoln is now considered a very reliable brand -- more reliable than Toyota) and they just wimped out and shut down the experiment (or too few other American drivers saw the opportunity)? |
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Interesting feature story quoted from Business Week: "The flexibility of BMW's factories allows for a dizzying choice of variations on basic models. At Leipzig, for instance, parts ranging from dashboards and seats to axles and and front ends snake onto overhead conveyor belts to be lowered into the assembly line in precise sequence according to customers' orders. BMW buyers can select everything from engine type to the color of the gear-shift box to a seemingly limitless number of interior trims--and then change their mind and order a completely different configuration as little as five days before production begins…There are so many choices that line workers assemble exactly the same car only about once every nine months…That kind of individualization would swamp most automakers with budget-busting complexity. But BMW has emerged as a sort of anti-Toyota. One excels in mastering complexity and tailoring cars to customers' tastes. That's what differentiates BMW from Lexus and the rest of the premium pack. 'BMW drivers never change to other brands,' says Yoichi Tomihara, president of Deutschland, who concedes that Toyota lags behind BMW in the sort of customization that creates emotional appeal." Nonetheless, new (as of Sept 1) CEO of BMW, Norbert Reithofer believes "the pack will be coming at him from the east." One BMW staffer who has worked with the new chief says he "never spoke about Mercedes. He was always looking over his shoulder at Toyota." Business Week concludes: "Over the next decade, BMW expects Toyota Motor Co.'s Lexus and Nissan Motor Co.'s Infiniti brands to set up plants in Europe and then hire German engineers to work on building cars with BMW-like handling. Within five years, predicts Reithofer, it could be 'Lexus that we will be most busy competing with'." |
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Replying to: lexusguy (Oct 13, 2006 12:44 pm) M
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Replying to: domenickamarc (Oct 15, 2006 6:31 pm) M
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Replying to: lexusguy (Oct 13, 2006 10:13 pm) I agree. I guess having 2 lists of cars, one that they can recommend and one for cars that they like a lot but can't would defeat CR's purpose huh? M |
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Replying to: merc1 (Oct 15, 2006 9:05 pm) Merc, I have no idea how BMW and Mercedes compare, along the specific dimension Business Week emphasized, which was ordering a vehicle with a customized set of individual options. I also wasn't quoting Business Week in order to praise BMW as the brand offering the most flexibility, only to add to the forum discussion an interesting contrast of brands offered by the CEOs of the two companies being contrasted. Unfortunately for Mercedes right now, when I read about its CEO being interviewed, he is always forced to defend the brand against the assault that CR and JDP have mounted against it.
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Replying to: domenickamarc (Oct 15, 2006 9:40 pm) M |
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Replying to: merc1 (Oct 15, 2006 9:04 pm)
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Replying to: lexusguy (Oct 15, 2006 10:18 pm) M
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