Multiple BMW 5-Series cars prove versatile value
When auto companies introduce a new model to the media, the plan usually consists of flying in the journalists, let them drive the new models for part of a day, then send them home, hoping the media will be sufficiently impressed to write something about the experience. Sometimes the sessions are at locations exotic enough to outperform the car.
When BMW decided to launch the 2008 5-Series sedans, the company outdid both ends of the spectrum. The cars, first of all, fit my usual overview of all things BMW — exorbitantly priced…and, because of the technology, worth every penny.
The 5-Series midsize sedans from the Bavarian company were introduced in totally new form in 2004, so this really was a mid-term appearance alteration, which concealed some pretty major powertrain modifications.
The locale? No hasty in-and-out drive routine here. Six of the seven new models were in the company arsenal, with prices ranging from the 528i base of $45,075, up through the 528Xi, where the “X” marks the spot for all-wheel drive, 535i, 535Xi, 550i, at $50,000, and then up to the M5 performance flagship’s staggering $83,675 (which includes destination). The only one missing was the 535Xi Sports Wagon.
It would take a while to wring out so many splendid cars, and so time was made available for a spectacular extended session of three driving days, over all manner of terrain, tracking from 1,000 feet below sea level to 14,000 feet above it.
We started in Las Vegas, and immediately drove into the Death Valley desert for the first night. Next morning, we charged across the desert and up the winding, twisty mountain roads to Yosemite Park for another night. On the third day, we toured the park’s scenic splendor, then drove on, and on, across wine-country valleys and back up the coastal California mountains, twisting and curving back down to reach the Pacific Ocean at Monterey’s Fisherman’s wharf. Spotting the ocean gave my driving partner and I a mini-taste of what Lewis and Clark experienced. Or maybe it was Laurel and Hardy. Well, at least Homer and Jethro. I’m not Jethro, but for the sake of sarcasm, and because of other obvious reasons as well as the odyssey this became, we could call my partner “Homer.”
Before finding my partner, I linked up with a journalist from Ottawa. Years ago, I sat at a table of all-Canadian writers, and, because I like hockey and I can say “eh,” they made me an honorary Canadian. So he and I took off in a 550i sedan, out of Las Vegas and into what was, for me, uncharted territory.
The 550i is a superb car, the top-of-the-line 5-Series car — excluding the M5. All BMW engines have dual overhead camshafts, and when you fit them onto a 4.8-liter V8, it makes four cams pumping 32 valves, and the name of that tune is 360 horsepower at 6,300 RPMs, and 360 foot-pounds of torque at 3,400.
Red Rock Canyon, and then the Pahrump Valley, lead to Death Valley Junction, where the old Amargosa Opera House signals that you’ve crossed from Nevada to California and you are indeed into Death Valley — a 140-mile basin that features borax-streaked hills and stretches that are a couple hundred feet below sea level. We stayed at the Furnace Creek Resort, appropriately named, and about to close right after the BMW drive group departed for the soon-to-be sizzling season that will climb from the 98 degrees we had to 120 or so. In 1913, the world’s highest recorded temperature of 134 was recorded.
From that point on, the four segments over the next two days was being judged on some loose rally themes, so camaraderie was important, at least to some of us. That next morning, we left early in a 535i sedan. That’s the $50,000 model with twin turbochargers boosting power and torque to nicely managed 300 figures. We crossed the desert, and curled down the valley flanked to the west by the Sierra Nevada Range and its 14,505-foot Mount Whitney — the highest peak in the 48 states. We ended up at Lake Isabella, nearly 200 miles later, for a box lunch and a swap of cars.
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This time we took a 535Xi sedan — same model, same power, but with X-Drive,BMW’s revised and significantly improved all-wheel drive system. Jethro, my codriver, had the better roads in the morning, getting the twistier stuff, but I figured it would even up. That afternoon, though, it didn’t, and he again had more fun. I had great roads to drive up into the mountains, but traffic prevented pushing such a pushable beast, so we admired the beauty and made our way to Tenaya Lodge, high up in the mountains.
To start the final day, we got our paws on a stunning dark red M5, with a six-speed stick. The 5.0-liter V10 develops a whopping, but smooth, 500 horsepower and 368 foot-pounds of torque, with a 7-speed sequential manual gearbox — a clutchless automatic — or a 6-speed manual, with stiffer suspension and every performance enhancement you can imagine. Again, Homer had a nice drive, but was restrained by the tight speed limit through Yosemite Park, as we viewed El Capitan, and some spectacular cliff-side waterfalls, and headed on to some better roads. We switched at an ice cream stop in Mariposa, and finally, I was proven correct, and I got my turn at some excessively fun roads. First, on one of those smooth, straight highways where you can see forever, I can suggest that we never tested the M5 at a tick beyond 135 mph. The M5 was at its best mastering the twisty, dangerous 2-lane of Ben Hur Road for 20 miles in the San Joaquin Valley. With tight curves and a narrowness unprotected by guardrails or even shoulders, it was spectacular, but extremely dangerous. When he drove hard, Homer likes to use the whole road width, while to me, the proper lane is sacred and I make sure I never put a tire across the center line, even at speed we shall call “excessive.”
The string of BMWs made it to the La Ramada in Kerman, Calif. — not a motel, but an authentic Mexican restaurant. It was there we got the chilling news that somewhere behind us, one of our fellow-journalists, possibly overdoing his experience level, had taken a sequence of turns on Ben Hur Road too fast, ultimately hooking his right front wheel over the right, unshouldered edge, and somersaulted the car off the road. It then flipped several times before coming to rest upside down. BMW’s superb safety system includes an instant emergency signal whenever the airbags deploy, and it worked. The passenger got out and was fine, but the driver was airlifted by helicopter and was hospitalized with a concussion and four fractured vertebra.
Unintended though this was, the car’s inherent safety structure characteristics couldn’t have been more graphically displayed.
After lunch, and with our freewheeling attitude considerably subdued, the lighthearted but necessary teamwork we had was shattered when Homer insisted we switch rotation, with me driving first on the final segment. I protested, but it wasn’t worth making a scene over, so I got behind the wheel of a 550i. He had suppressed any urge to complain when he had the better roads on the first two major segments, and I didn’t either, assuming things would even up. When that proved true, Homer apparently was so overcome about my morning stretch that he checked with a rally director to learn that the best parts of the afternoon segment would be on the second half. When he had the audacity to use that self-centered news as justification, saying he thought I’d want him to have some fun, too, I was both astounded and perturbed, but rather than leave him for the buzzards, I took the wheel.
Funny how things work out. By wonderful irony, near the end of my first half of the final segment featured a newly-paved stretch of Hwy. 198, which was spectacular in its twists and turns. It might have been the best drive of the whole trip, and it left Homer grumbling in the passenger seat that he had gotten bad been told that Hwy. 198 “was supposed to be” on his part of the drive. Sometimes, even whining to get your own way can’t make you happy.
Coming into Monterey, the ocean was a stunning sight. The 550i, with a 6-speed stick, performed admirably. As the surf rolled up on Fisherman’s Wharf, we all reconvened over dinner with mostly compatible friends. After three days, two of which were 10-hour driving days, we covered nearly 900 miles of hard driving, and nobody could complain about not getting enough driving time. The fleet of BMW 5-Series cars proved to be better than ever, from their engines, transmissions, suspensions, body firmness — and safety. The prices are high, but technology and technical perfection is worth a lot. But if you’re going to drive for 10 hours, choose your codriver with care.
Altima Coupe is a sporty car Minnesota could love
It was fitting that Nissan introduced its new Altima Coupe in Minneapolis. It could be a hit wherever it’s sold, but it should be a major hit in Minnesota because you can think of it as a $20,000 cousin to the 350Z, purpose-built for the Great White North.
Nissan to unveil the Altima Coupe, in a media introduction that bypassed the “usual” West Coast locations to give the nation’s auto journalists a rare glimpse of Minnesota, with North American journalists converging on the Graves Hotel in Minneapolis in five consecutive waves, timed to last through Memorial Day weekend, when the Coupe is scheduled to debut in showrooms all across the country.
Both the car and Minnesota showed up impressively. The Coupe is far more than just an Altima sedan with the back doors taped shut, which is evident as soon as you see the car’s sleek, nicely-contoured lines. As for the state, the Graves is as good a hotel as exists in Minnesota,located right across First Avenue from Target Center, and amid such spots as the First Avenue night club, the Loon Cafe with its legendary grilled cheese sandwich, wild rice soup, and variable-heat chili, both within a block, to say nothing of the Fine Line and more adventurous night spots.
Not that the media types got any time for such forays. Nor did we get to drive the potential roadways I had envisioned, such as the curvy, cliffside roads downriver to Red Wing or Wabasha, or the wonderfully rolling hills of the Zumbro River Valley, or even the scenic curves along the Minnesota River. Those might have allowed us to push the firm and stable suspension of the Coupe a bit. Instead, we drove to Stillwater, then quickly crossed the St. Croix River into Wisconsin, avoiding the fear of being fitted for cheese-wedge hats, but limited to straight and flat rural highways.
But Nissan’s mission was to reach a distant farm location where an off-road course was carved in order to do some off-road driving in the also-renovated Titan pickup, and Pathfinder and Armada SUVs. More power — including a V8 engine for the first time in the midsize Pathfinder — was the news for the trucks.
But the spotlight remains on the Altima Coupe, which was first displayed at the Chicago Auto Show in February. By then, the Altima sedan was already out and had triggered the company to what is now an 11.8-percent year-to-date sales increase.
There is a difference between sports cars and sporty coupes, and while the 350Z remains one of the world’s most venerable and affordable sports cars, the Altima Coupe is definitely a sporty coupe. In real-world driving, the Coupe has the feel and flair of a car considerably sportier than its sedan brother, yet it has the front-wheel-drive benefits and a starting price sticker of $20,000 — a price point that is about half of its famous sports-car cousin.
Like most sports cars, the venerable Nissan 350Z is front-engine/rear-drive, and it remains one of the best sports cars available. Its upscale brother is the Infiniti G35, which comes in either 2-plus-2 coupe, or sedan. Unless you get the all-wheel-drive version of the G, however, there will be winter days in Minnesota where you’d be wise to leave them and their rear-drive in the garage. The new Altima Coupe, which shares nothing with those vehicles — except the legendary and constantly improving Nissan 3.5-liter V6, which is the reason for the 350Z’s name — will find Minnesota’s snow and ice no obstacle at all, sharing that front-wheel-drivetrain of the Altima sedan.
The Coupe gets its own chassis and body, with the only shared body panel with the sedan being the hood. Under that hood the potent 3.5 V6 should not cause customers to overlook the 2.5-liter four-cylinder as gas prices rise past $3 on their way to $4.
Nissan could claim to be among the first to the now-crowded midsize segment with the old Stanza, which was renamed Altima a few decades back, and it always has been a willing battler against such segment stalwarts as the Honda Accord, Toyota Camry and Mazda6. The Altima sedan’s fourth major redesign this year elevates it right up to rank with only the Mazda6 as the most outright fun to drive in that group. The Altima Coupe gives Nissan a one-up in the showroom, too, because while the Accord, which is is due for a total redesign later this summer, has a solid-selling coupe, Toyota’s just-redone Camry is rumored to be losing its Solara coupe, and Mazda stopped making its coupe version years ago. If you examine the rest of the hotly competitive midsize, such as the Mitsubishi Galant, Subaru Legacy, Volkswagen Jetta, Saturn Aura, Pontiac G6, Ford Fusion, and Chevy Malibu — among others — you’ll find only the Jetta (with the Golf-cum-Rabbit) and the G6 have coupes to accompany their sedans.
The journalists had good reason to feel at home, because of a blend of Minnesota Nice, which carries over to Nissan public relations director John Schilling, a Minneapolis native. Schilling grew up listening to Charlie Boone on WCCO AM830 radio, so after learning that I do a 7 o’clock Saturday morning radio show with Charlie, he thought it was a great idea to have Charlie join me on the test drive. We joined Miguel Sanchez, a New Jersey journalist who is a native of Cuba, where, as a bright teenager at the time of Fidel Castro’s rise to power, he played chess with Che Guevara. The three of us had great conversations, and got to rotate to see that the rear seat in the Coupe actually is comfortably roomy.
Product planner John Curl said Nissan’s intention was “not just any coupe…but one with unique styling, with a family resemblance, but also an aggressive stance,” achieved with a shorter wheelbase and shorter front and rear overhang than the sedan. The Coupe’s 182.5-inch length is 7.3 inches shorter, the 105.3-inch wheelbase is 4 inches shorter, while the 70.7-inch width is the same, compared to the sedan. The Coupe sits lower, with a roof that is 2.3 inches closer to the ground, and with the steeply sloping rear deck it was notable that the rear seat had adequate leg and foot room, and the comfort quotient increased as occupants grew shorter than 6 feet.
The Nissan 3.5 V6 has been a mainstay of the Z car, the Maxima, then the Altima, Pathfinder, Frontier, G35, and virtually everything made by the company, which builds much of its fleet in U.S. plants now, while remaining No. 2 in sales only to Toyota in its Japan homeland.
While the styling is the most striking thing about the Coupe, so is its reasonable price. The basic S model starts at $20,450, with the 2.5-liter four and its 175 horsepower at 5,600 RPMs and 180 foot-pounds of torque at 3,900. After our brief drives, that’s the way I think I’d buy the car — and the way 60 percent of Coupe buyers probably will. The SE starts at $24,890, with the V6’s 270 horsepower at 6,000 revs, and 258 foot-pounds of torque at 4,400 RPMs. Both engines feature dual overhead camshafts, and both come with either a manual transmission, or, for $500 more, Nissan’s impressively smooth Xtronic CVT (continuously variable transission).
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A subtle but impressive fact is that the stick shift in both models is a six-speed, rather than the five offered by competitors’ sticks. The manual shifter may make V6 models even sportier, but it also extracts more than adequate power from the four. It’s always been puzzling why most companies offer no more than five speed sticks with their smaller engines, and the Altima Coupe proves that smaller engines benefit more from having more gears.
Dual exhausts and antilock brakes are standard with all Altima Coupes, and traction control is standard on the SE. Independent front suspension with struts and coil springs, and rear independent multi-link, both have stabilizer bars. The S has 16-inch wheels, and the SE has 17s. Also standard are dual-stage front airbags, front seat-mounted side airbags, side-impact airbag curtains, and active head restraints. Various packages can boost the price, and options include rear monitor, a navigation system, Bose audio upgrade with nine speakers, power-sliding glass moonroof, and Bluetooth phone system. But in base form, the Coupe is an inexpensive standout.
We first drove in the basic S with the stick, and found it willing to rev and fun to drive. Later, the V6 with the CVT also was impressive, and while the CVT operates on a flexible steel belt self-adjusting (and self-shifting) by an enlarging pulley, a manual gate allows the driver to electronically modify the shift pattern to engage in upshifts or downshifts. I stood on it once, and ran the revs up to 5,500 before manually shifting the automatic to second and third, and it felt like a normal automatic rather than a CVT.
That was on a nice, warm May day, but the firm chassis exhibited none of the torque-steer tendencies that front-wheel-drive critics whine about. And, come next November, when snow flurries threaten, the Altima Coupe not only will feel right at home to Minnesotans — but that front-wheel drive will also GET them home.
About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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