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It’s a fact that car manufacturers go to great lengths to promote their new products. Traditional means like TV and press advertising are so last year –and so is celebrity endorsement, though they are still employed by the carmakers. However, the new place to be are the social media, like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. BMW has gone one step further in promoting its brand-new 2012 1-Series: it has created a video clip named “check my machine” which shows the process of manufacturing the car.
The spectators at last weekend’s ADAC GT Masters championship at the Nürburgring witnessed a horrific crash involving Alex Plenagl and his BMW Alpina B6 GT3 racecar when the driver lost control of the vehicle and strayed off the course at a high speed. Plenagl’s Alpina flew over the safety barriers, passed through a BMW sign and crashed onto the concrete wall.
Two observations: one, there’s nothing cooler than a LS1-engined BMW that is externally indistinguishable from its bread-and-butter cousins and two, the Apple iPhone is probably the worst thing for filming a movie ever. A little less of number two and a little more number one, if you please. 
This BMW E46 3-Series coupe, or as its UK owner has appropriately named it, the 357Ci, started its life as a 2001 325Ci with an M Sport Package. In the hands of its current owner, it received the same 5.7-liter LS1 V8 engine as the rather forlorn looking Porsche 911 we wrote about last week, making this the second American-powered German automobile we’ve featured in as many days.
The Audi RS3 Sportback and the BMW 1 M Coupe represent two very different approaches on the compact sport model segment. Ingolstadt’s proposal is a five-door model that looks more like a hotted-up small station wagon than a hatchback. It features a 2.5-liter turbocharged inline-five producing 340-horsepower and 450 Nm (331.90 lb-ft) linked to Audi’s all-wheel drive quattro system and a seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox.
Tom Cruise’s return for another impossible mission as Ethan Hunt also marks the BMW Group’s return to Hollywood, as the Bavarian automaker will be the main automotive partner in the fourth installment of the Mission Impossible franchise. 
BMW’s product placement in the “Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol” film comes in the form of the concept version of the upcoming i8 Hybrid Coupe, the Vision EfficientDynamics study while the latest 6-Series Convertible will also play a role in the movie.
