Before the IAA closed, we runned to BMW’s hall and stumbled across the BMW 4 Series, with no more journalists around, and we could finally have a look around. Basically, the 4 Series is just the new name for the 3 series Coupé and we wondered why BMW decided to start a new car series just for this. The presented version was the most powerful, an underdog M3, with the 3 liter straight six twin turbocharged engine developping here the usual 306 horsepower, which is 15 less than the 135i. Strange for what is supposed to be the sports coupé being less powerful than the sports hatchback. It is available as a rear-wheel drive or with BMW’s four wheel-drive transmission, called xDrive. So no more normally aspirated straight-six engine, and even worse, no more manual gearbox !
On our way out, we saw a strangely familiar shape and found ourselves looking at the New Stratos ! This was a one-off for another multimillionaire who dreamt of recreating the legendary Lancia Stratos. He took a shortened chassis, wheelbase, and engine of a Ferrari F430 Scuderia to make his dream come true. Once his concept was presented to the public there were so much enthusiasm that he decided to make it a small production series. Sadly, when they went to ask Ferrari’s CEO Luca di Montezemolo if they could use the 430 Scuderia engines, he simply refused, maybe too scared of some internal italian competition.
