Solid Walls of Sound: Part 2.

4-year Owner Review: My 1987 BMW E24 635CSi

Price (brand new): $46,965 (adjusted for inflation: $109,245)
Price (as purchased): $2,100 USD
Hagerty Value as of 2020: $18,600 USD
Current mileage: 277,000 km (est.)
Performance: 218 horsepower, 229 lb ft. torque (est. after cat delete), 3.4L inline six with 4-speed auto; 3219 lbs.

<This is a 5-part feature where I rave about my 33-year-old BMW E24 635CSi, which I bought four years ago. Yeah, it's a little long.>

Previously: Part 1: Sense of Occasion.

Part 2: Driving.

My First Impressions of Gran Turismo 7 Beta

Mazda uses Gran Turismo as a platform to show their dedication to rotary-powered cars by committing to only create them in video games.

If you are a car enthusiast and a gamer, chances are you will have heard about the Sony PS5 launch that just happened last week. With it, of course, is the much awaited announcement of the racing simulator, Gran Turismo 7.

It is a big deal, of course. The Gran Turismo series is one of the most realistic driving games available today, featuring a huge array of cars and stunning photo-realistic graphics that would surely push the Playstation hardware to the edge. It is an exciting time for a long-time Gran Turismo fan like myself.

It just so happens that one of my cousins is a beta-tester at Polyphony Digital, and I have been able to get my hands on a pre-production PS5 and a secret beta copy of GT7.

With a massive release like this, there are many things that Polyphony Digital are trying to improve over the previous titles, while coming up with new content to keep the series fresh. This game being still in beta stages however means that there are some glitches and bugs as well.

Here are some of the things that I have observed while playing this game.

Is It the Worst It's Ever Been? BMW Edition.

Looking back on past design failures of BMW.

Just this past week, some images of the next generation 4 series have surfaced on the internet, and the verdict is... uh, not good. It seems that BMW has decided to fully copy Audi's homework in having a massive corporate grill, and just slapped on two enlarged kidneys on the front of the car.

When it happened on the concept cars, everyone shrugged and assumed that such designs will surely not make it to production. And then they did stuff like this, and this, and this -- so it's only a matter of time when the classic signature kidney grills become so enlarged you'd think that the car is suffering from Hydronephrosis.

It's quite amazing to witness BMW's long fall from grace from being one of the manufacturers with the best looking automotive lineup, to whatever the hell they have going on right now.

But then, is this the worst that has ever come from BMW? I don't know. So let's look back.

Just to be clear, this list is only going to include production BMWs -- concepts and prototype cars are not included. Let's start.

Solid Walls of Sound: Part 1.

4-year Owner Review: My 1987 BMW E24 635CSi

Price (brand new): $46,965 USD (adjusted for inflation: $109,245)
Price (as purchased): $2,100 USD
Hagerty Value as of 2020: $18,600 USD
Current mileage: 171,800 miles / 276,845 km (est.)
Performance: 218 horsepower, 229 lb ft. torque (est. after cat delete), 3.4L inline six with 4-speed auto; 3219 lbs.

Full disclose: I had originally planned on writing the review all in one go, but as you are about to realize, this blog post alone is purely on describing the startup procedure of this car. Yeah, I am definitely going to break this up to a couple parts, because the fact is, despite having owned this car for 4 years, despite all its flaws and its attempts to drain my bank account dry, I still love this car to death, and I cannot be more glad to have pulled the trigger on getting this car back in 2016.

So, enjoy, because I am going to spend the next little while telling you all about this car.

Part 1: Sense of Occasion.