RECENT ARTICLES
BMW Gives Roadmap For Autonomous Driving
Over the last few years, BMW’s focus has been centered on its new technological flagship, the iX. In the run up to the model’s release, BMW spent a great deal of time talking up the electric vehicle’s self-driving and autonomous capabilities, but when the official announcement finally came, details...
M4 Gran Coupé Unlikely
Holding out for an M4 Gran Coupé? The addition of a four-door M4 to the lineup doesn’t seem likely according to a recent interview of BMW Project Manager Robert Pilsl from German automotive news outlet BimmerToday. Even though BMW M is currently working on an M3 Touring that unfortunately won’t...
BMW NA Sales Increase 20% During First Quarter
North American BMW sales rebounded with enthusiasm during the first quarter, with total deliveries growing 20.1% year-over-year from 64,692 to 77,718. Both the BMW and Mini brands saw sales expand by similar figures. BMW brand sales increased 20.1% year-over-year from 59,455 to 71,433, while Mini brand sales are also...
2021 5 Series And M5 Reviews Applaud Refinement
It’s easy to drone on about how the 5 Series is one of the most important BMW models for various reasons, both historical in context and current, but if you want the short version of it, look no further than BMW’s sales—the venerable 5 Series has remained a volume...
BMW Chassis Codes Explained
Spend a bit of time in the BMW community, and you’ll soon find yourself peppered by terms like E46, E38, F80, G30, and a myriad of others in the course of conversation. Although these codes, which refer to specific BMW chassis from throughout the brand’s history, may seem like...
BMW To Source Sustainable South American Lithium Via U.S. Supplier
As the market for electric vehicles grows, so too does demand for the raw materials which make up their construction, more specifically the elements used in their batteries and electric motors. BMW’s fifth-generation eDrive architecture doesn’t require any rare-earth metals, which are difficult and controversial to source, and now,...
New My BMW App Launches April 12
BMW has announced a new My BMW App, which will be available to iOS and Android users starting April 12. The My BMW App will succeed the BMW Connected app, and brings with it a host of new features and capabilities. Said to represent the next generation of customer...
M Chapter Announces Club Day At BMW Performance Center West
The newly established M Chapter is headed to the BMW Performance Center in Thermal, California, on December 5 for our first west-coast M Chapter Club Day event of 2021. The Performance Center provides current model M cars, instructors, gas, tires, lunch, and a first-class facility for a fun-filled day...
M4 GT3 Tests In Spain In Advance of June Race Debut
The M4 GT3, BMW’s new customer race car, is undergoing extensive testing in advance of a race debut planned for June. Factory racers Martin Tomczyk, Jens Klingmann, and Nick Yelloly piloted the car in endurance runs and race simulations on the Almeria circuit in Spain in late March. The...
Walkenhorst M6 GT3s Will Run In GT World Challenge Europe
Walkenhorst Motorsport will enter a pair of M6 GT3s in the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe Series in 2021, where they will compete in the series’ five-race Endurance Cup. Walkenhorst’s endurance racing credentials include the 2020 Intercontinental GT Challenge drivers’ title for Augusto Farfus and Nick Catsburg. The team...
Alpina B8 Gran Coupé Offers Antidote To The M8
Looking for the best BMW has to offer right now? That near perfect blend of performance luxury and every day capability? It might not have those heavily-bolstered M seats, high strung M engine, or even be a BMW model. It’s called the Alpina B8 Gran Coupé, and it’s the...
BMW Classic Offers A Glimpse Of The E46 M3 GTR
There are rare BMWs, and then there are rare BMWs. The E31 M8 prototype from the BMW Classic video a few weeks ago qualifies as one of these exceptionally rare BMWs, and so does the E46 M3 GTR. Built as a homologation special so its race car stablemate could compete,...
Ladies’ Program Committee Update: Zoom Call Announcement
The BMW CCA Ladies’ Program Committee is excited to share our mission to encourage more active participation in the club by its women members. The driving force behind our success is inclusion and open conversation. Our team has great plans, but we are open to suggestions and want to...
The Ultimate Parts-Bin Special
I like playing what if as much as the next guy, and today’s objective is to select different attributes from some of my favorite BMWs over the years, and to combine them all into one hypothetical vehicle—the ultimate parts-bin special, if you will. Let’s start with a chassis. BMW...
BMW M Supporting Red Bull Driftbrothers
BMW M is extending its support to a form of motorsport that doesn’t typically see factory involvement: drifting. Although letting the rear end slide out in the turns costs precious tenths of a second in competition, drifting has become something of a spectator sport over the last several years,...
BMW iX, i4 Officially Revealed
We’re now five years removed from the 100th anniversary of the founding of BMW, and the first two key models which serve as part of the automaker’s next-generation strategy have been revealed. They are, of course, the iX and i4, and by now, you’ve likely heard plenty about both....
Ends March 31: Get $70 Plus FREE 1-Year BMW CCA Membership!
This special offer from Michelin has just been extended until March 31 2021! A major supporter of the BMW CCA for over a decade, Michelin has an exclusive offer just for club members! Get a $70 Visa® Reward Card1—plus, for the first 300 eligible† requests, a one-year membership (or...
BMW M Debuts New MotoGP Safety-Car Fleet
The fleet of BMW M’s production cars has been shaken up over the past year, with new generations of established models entering the fold, and the extension of M branding to BMW Motorrad in the form of the M 1000 RR sport bike. BMW, which has boasted the title...
Join A Caravan To MX1 Enthusiast Weekend
The M Chapter is excited to announce that the X Chapter will join the official caravan to MX1! During the April inaugural event to celebrate all things BMW, this joint caravan will allow CCA members from across the country to enjoy the camaraderie of rallying to Greenville, South Carolina...
Does A Manual Transmission Complete The M3 CSL?
There are only two things not to like about the E46 M3 CSL: It wasn’t sold the in the U.S., and it was available exclusively with an SMG automated manual transmission. If you look into the details of the car and what BMW had in mind during its creation,...
First M3 And M4 Reviews Praise Capability, Criticize Looks
The first reviews of the new M3 and M4 have appeared on the Internet, and there seems to be something of a common theme between them. Two of the most anticipated—and controversial—vehicles on the market, the G80 M3 and G82 M4 are exalted as being incredibly capable in terms...
Limited-Edition BMW CCA Executive Package Set Launches March 18
Update 3/19/21: This initial offering of the Executive Package is now sold out! Be one of the first to receive a personalized metal membership card and a curated collection of premium accessories as part of the new Limited-Edition BMW CCA Executive Package set. During the initial offering, we will...
BMW Classic Fires Up Original M8 Prototype
Nearly 30 years before the current M8 would assume the role as the fastest production BMW, the company developed a single testbed based on the E31 chassis. Said to have been conceived as a supercar competitor, the original M8 never made it beyond the prototype stage, but has nonetheless...
M Chapter To Host Webinar With Enthusiast Auto Group
Please join the M Chapter for a webinar with Eric Keller, CEO & Founder of Enthusiast Auto Group (EAG). Based in Cincinnati, Ohio, EAG is a specialized BMW preservation company primarily focused on the analog era M cars. They selectively research, source, recondition and sell some of the finest BMW M...
X Chapter Announces Club Day At BMW Performance Center East
With the upcoming MX1 Enthusiast Weekend, scheduled for April 9–11, 2021 in Greenville, South Carolina, the X Chapter is now holding spots for an exclusive event at the BMW Performance Center. Have you ever wanted to take an X vehicle on the track? Have you ever wanted to take...
More Than You Wanted To Know About Air Conditioning In BMW 2002s
As it’s now officially spring, when a young (or old) man’s fancy turns to thoughts of road trips with working air conditioning, I thought I’d post a quick primer to commonly-asked BMW 2002 air conditioning questions. (Actually, the real reason is that I just did a quick rundown of...
Onward—To The Vintage!
It’s been a long strange year for all of us. One non-world-altering but still disconcerting effect of the pandemic is that I haven’t had a look at another car in over a year, and frankly, it’s beginning to drive me a little nutty. (In fairness, I did buy back Zelda,...
The Season Of Zelda
Today’s topic confirms how right I was to buy back Zelda, my former 1999 Z3, in December, but first I must subject you to: The Tyranny Of The Hose-Clamp Police, Part III: The Re-clamping (Nobody expects the Hose-Clamp Police!) In the seemingly never-ending quest to have appropriate hose clamps...
The Tyranny Of The Hose-Clamp Police, Part II
Two weeks ago I wrote about my preemptive strike to banish generic hardware-store hose clamps—the ones with slots cut into them for the worm gear to bite into, where the hose’s rubber winds up extruding through the slots over time—from the engine compartment of Hampton, my 48,000-mile survivor ’73...
Clutch-Hose Authenticity, Driveline-Fluid Blues
After addressing the, er, hose-clamp situation on Hampton, the 48,000-mile ’73 2002 that I hope to sell this spring, there were just a few more items left on the punch list. The first was the clutch hydraulic line, because last June, when I replaced Hampton’s clutch master and slave...
The Tyranny Of The Hose-Clamp Police
Readers of this column will be relieved to learn that I’ve snapped out of my morose, self-indulgent “I’ve got no projects queued up on the three cars in the garage and the driveway is blocked with snow, so I can’t swap the cars out for other cars, so I’ve...
