The BMW History : It was fifty years ago. Today...

[McLaren]

Also what is the big deal about BMW's history? It's something I have always wondered. BMW fans act like the company has so much history when it is only 50 years old, has 1 Le Mans win, and 1 ALMS win?

BMW has won so much more than that....

How about BMW's domination in the WTCC? What Porsche was to LeMans, BMW was to the WTCC. When it came to any form of Touring Car Racing, BMW was huge competition.

Or the 24H Nurburgring. To this date only 36 races have ever been held. Take a good guess as to which company has won 18 (or half) of these races since.

I'm not trying to be mean but I don't even remember the last time I heard someone say something about Audi's history (100 years old), Mercedes (128 years old), Porsche (78 years old), Ford (106 years old), or just about any other company that is much older (basically every major car company).

Age is nothing but a number. Vauxhall was founded in 1857 & built its first car in 1903. Lamborghini was founded in 1963 & had its first car done by 1964. Now, while Vauxhall has produced some good cars in its time, I really doubt anything they've built is as history-making as the first supercar (Miura), the Countach, or the Diablo.

And the thread title isn't really correct in relevance to BMW's age. Next year, BMW will be 94 years old, & it will be only 83 years since their first car, the 3/15 DA-1.

As for other manufacturers, there is a lot of talk about their history, you may just not have run into it yet. There is plenty of talk on Audi's Quattro development, Ford's upsetting of Ferrari, & Porsche's 911.
Edit*
I like how HFS & I touched on all the same historical moments with the same companies. 👍

 

[JB-BMW1989]

MINI's are about as much of BMW's as Scions are Toyota's.

True, but the Mini Cooper is better than all the Scions. I have my two cousins own the Coopers, though I prefer the Mini John Cooper Works Hardtop.

In the topic,

The best year for BMW to win the biggest race ever was 1999. The V12 LMR became the famous Le Mans race car with 7 wins, 4 poles, 3 fastest laps and an overall victor on the 24 Hour of Le Mans. Although, it never win a single championship. The BMW V12 LMR was the best car to win only one Le Mans race since the Mazda 787B in 1991.

 

[McLaren]

True, but the Mini Cooper is better than all the Scions. I have my two cousins own the Coopers, though I prefer the Mini John Cooper Works Hardtop.

In the topic,

The best year for BMW to win the biggest race ever was 1999. The V12 LMR became the famous Le Mans race car with 7 wins, 4 poles, 3 fastest laps and an overall victor on the 24 Hour of Le Mans. Although, it never win a single championship. The BMW V12 LMR was the best car to win only one Le Mans race since the Mazda 787B in 1991.

I'm pretty sure the F1 GTR & the 911 GT1-98 were just as good cars....

 

[///M-Spec]

BMW fans act like the company has so much history when it is only 50 years old<SNIP>

The company was founded in 1916, making it 93 years old.

It was 50 years ago that the first 'Neue Klasse' car was introduced, signaling a revival for the brand. The cars would form the basis for the modern product line as we know it today.

The company does have a lot of history. Look it up.

You already said the way a car feels is an opinion. If they feel better that doesn't mean they are better.

Some opinions are have more merit than others.


M

 

[neanderthal]

Not when people believe they are the greatest cars on the world based on a video game, and continue to talk on how they are the greatest cars that have ever graced the midnight streets, when they are not.



The AE86 is highly overrated. TV shows, anime, many things contribute to it. They make it look like an amazing car. Well, guess what? The amazing things are happening behind the wheel.

That's my view on it, and those are the only things I can give faith in that they are overrated. I have to say I'm amazed: you are basically calling him an idiot, and all you have to do is reply FAIL to most of his arguments?

The only reason why I gave him a fail response for those responses is because the responses failed to explain how or why the cars mentioned were overrated.
When you praise a vehicle for its drifting capability and say nothing else about it, you have failed to clearly enunciate why the AE86 os overrated.
I agree, that indeed, it IS overrated. I have my own reasons for why. But I didn't call it overrated.
He failed to explain why. Hence fail.

If he asked me, I would have said it was an underpowered economy car with a harsh riding sold axle. The GTS was a decent performer with good balance, which lent itself to drifting years later.
As a performance vehicle it was never anything special. As an economy car, it was never anything special. At the time, Honda and Toyota were not making cars that were superior to American manufacturers. They made ho hum appliances which kept going and going. They weren't ergonomic, safety, dynamic, or safety leading in anyway. They were just reliable.

But, like I said, I am not the one who called them overrated.

Also, I generally don't look for opinions on vehicles from people whose only experience with them is on video games. I know people who autocross, race etc, who own and drive S2000s, Miatas, E36 BMWs, AE86s etc, either as daily drivers, or as their race cars. The opinions of those people are never derisory; any car can be raced. Each will have it's strengths and weaknesses, its pros and cons. Those are the people whose opinions I tend to look for. Not some teenager who only just got his permit.

 

[JB-BMW1989]

I'm pretty sure the F1 GTR & the 911 GT1-98 were just as good cars....

The F1 GTR did get an overall victor on Le-Mans in 1995 and the 911 GT1-98 in 1998, so you're right, they look great.

 

[Lucas]

I know people who autocross, race etc, who own and drive S2000s, Miatas, E36 BMWs, AE86s etc, either as daily drivers, or as their race cars. The opinions of those people are never derisory; any car can be raced. Each will have it's strengths and weaknesses, its pros and cons. Those are the people whose opinions I tend to look for. Not some teenager who only just got his permit.

I have no doubt about it. That doesn't change the fact that some cars are overrated. Anyways, if you want to look at some people's opinions on which cars are overrated, I suggest you this thread which you may find interesting, with actual opinions of people who have driven cars in their life:

What is the "Most overrated car of all time"?

Feel free to continue this kind of discussion there, I believe this thread has gone enough off-topic. It better end now, for its own good.

 

[neanderthal]

I have no doubt about it. That doesn't change the fact that some cars are overrated. Anyways, if you want to look at some people's opinions on which cars are overrated, I suggest you this thread which you may find interesting, with actual opinions of people who have driven cars in their life:

What is the "Most overrated car of all time"?

Feel free to continue this kind of discussion there, I believe this thread has gone enough off-topic. It better end now, for its own good.

I believe that most of the contributors here are not, for lack of a better word, credible. Which is why I pressed those who made such bold claims to define exactly what (brand) and how (metric) was overrated. And as you can see, they can't even clearly state exactly what or how.
There are some whose knowledge base runs deep. For the most part they stay away from making such ill conceived blanket statements.

I'm just one of those people who calls people on their male bovine excrement.

 

[Lucas]

I believe that most of the contributors here are not, for lack of a better word, credible. Which is why I pressed those who made such bold claims to define exactly what (brand) and how (metric) was overrated. And as you can see, they can't even clearly state exactly what or how.
There are some whose knowledge base runs deep. For the most part they stay away from making such ill conceived blanket statements.

Then again, do you realize you are talking with people on a forum created to discuss a video game? Last time I checked, most people who play videogames are kids. This particular videogame, however, attracts older men interested on cars.

Anyways, do you realize we are talking about BMW in this thread? The sole presence of any other brand automatically gets this thread off-topic. You don't need to compare one car to another car to say it's overrated. A respectable person (the way you like it) attributes a car X qualities when it doesn't have them, bam, it's overrated (as long as those qualities are good, otherwise, if they are bad, the car is underrated in that aspect). You compared "overrated" with "better" before. Those words are not even close in definition.

I can't talk whether BMW is overrated or not, because I know nothing of the subject in itself, so I simply shut up and watch others debate, or better, I do something else.

 

[MatskiMonk]

BMW fans act like the company has so much history when it is only 50 years old, has 1 Le Mans win, and 1 ALMS win?

Errmm... yeah...

BMW in motorsport ---- Outright and/or Class wins in &#8216;World&#8217; & &#8216;European&#8217;, Russian, Dutch, New Zealand, Italian, Australian, South-East Asian, Swedish, Belgian, Portugese, Danish, Finnish, Croation, Japanese, Asian-Pacific, British, South African, Swiss, Czech, Slovenian, South American, and Austrian touring car championships. German Super Touring, French Super Touring, European Super production, German Touring Challenge, European and international Grp N, Daytona 500 GT3 class, US Road Racing & Professional Sportscar series&#8217;. The Mille Miglia Storica, the 24h of Le Mans, the 24h of Spa, the 24h of Nürburgring, the 24h of Silverstone/Britcar, 12h of Sebring, The Paris-Dakar Rally, DTM, ALMS, ALMS GT, Asian LMS, ADAC Super Touring, ADAC GT, AMSCAR, 12 separate Hill-climb championships, European Rally Championships&#8230; and an M3 even won a round of the WRC for ProDrive&#8230;. BMW powered F1 cars have won numerous F1 races for Williams and Brabham, and also there was a win for the BMW Sauber F1 team...

And all that&#8217;s just since the early-80&#8217;s! BMW have been winning all kinds of stuff since they came 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th in the 1940 Mille Miglia!

Also, the majoroty of their sucess has come in "close to production" type series, where the cars they race are based on series production cars, rather than LMP's or cars like DTM use at the moment...

 

[///M-Spec]

Feel free to continue this kind of discussion there, I believe this thread has gone enough off-topic. It better end now, for its own good.

Someone made a comment that BMW was "overrated".

Therefore a discussion that centers around the credibility of the statement and the metrics used on evaluating the brand's products are perfectly natural and entirely legitimate.

I do not see the off-topic.

Anyways, do you realize we are talking about BMW in this thread? The sole presence of any other brand automatically gets this thread off-topic.

Disagree. One of the best ways to evaluate a product is to compare it against a rival product.


I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish here. If you feel this line of discussion is too OT for you, why do you contribute to it by continuing to reply to it?


M