BMW M3 GTS

Today must be hardcore versions of existing sports cars day for the German car manufacturers.  Hot on the heels of the 911GT2 RS. BMW have released some stats and this video of the BMW M3 GTS lapping the "Ring".


Lighter and more powerful (444bhp) than the standard M3, the GTS sports a slightly dubious rear spoiler and a vivid (but surprisingly appealing) orange paint job. Likely to carry a massive premium over the standard M3 it's probably a car best suited to wealthy fans of  BMW's M Division, but after the highly dubious X6M and X5M it does show that BMW's iconic sporting sub brand is more or less still heading in the right direction.

BMW Gran Coupe and Mercedes Shooting Brake Concepts

The forthcoming Beijing Motorshow looks like it will be witnessing the battle of the Saloon Coupes, or four door coupes or even Coupoons or whatever you want to call them.

Both Mercedes and BMW will be previewing concept versions on the new CLS and 6 Series respectively.

The Gran Coupe as the BMW concept is now seems to be a styling development of the previous CS concept of a few years ago. Despite the concept tag this is clearly a production ready car and is likely to join the existing 2 door coupe and Cabrio in the next 6 Series range.

I don't much car for the current 6, the styling is wonky, the seats are too hard and the ride is terrible. I also dislike the pointless tech on the car (variable indicators why?) but at least this concept seems to improve on the styling looking especially neat in profile view.



The Mercedes Shooting Brake concept is probably not quite the production car that the BMW is, I doubt that this neat estate body will make production (at least not yet) but the styling clues to the forthcoming CLS are all there. This will be an important model for Mecedes as the original CLS created this new niche which Jaguar have sort of followed with the XF and along with the BM, Audi are likely to join the fray with the A7.

On the basis of the styling the Merc should remain the class benchmark, the Shooting Break Concept looks fantastic especially the imposing front. While this is the concept I hope Merc eventually puts this Shooting brake into production as well. It looks a far more suitable car than the weird and largely forgotten R class and looks the ideal GT car for the family.

911 vs the Batmobile

More period footage, this time featuring the Mighty BMW CSL Batmobiles racing against various types of Porsche 911 (mainly 934's and 935's) in the Seventies. Surprisingly, considering the size of the wings and tyres on these cars, how much they moved around compared to todays GT racers, but then the CSLs were alleged to have upwards of 750BHP in turbocharged form. The video features a very nice slow motion section of a Batmobile getting air.