[JasonTDude]

Well I'm not surprised about these numbers. I was at the Detroit auto show at the M3/M4 event and saw the BMW execs talk non-stop about how many cars they sold this year and how they made more money this year than last year and so on and so forth. I'd say they spent 95% of their time talking about how they are doing financially and spent 5% of their time talking about the actual cars (interestingly, the Corvette unveil was the complete opposite). The whole event was more like a shareholder meeting than anything else. Seems like you guys are more concerned about your profit than the actual cars you produce.

[CSBM5]

Originally Posted by JasonTDude

Well I'm not surprised about these numbers. I was at the Detroit auto show at the M3/M4 event and saw the BMW execs talk non-stop about how many cars they sold this year and how they made more money this year than last year and so on and so forth. I'd say they spent 95% of their time talking about how they are doing financially and spent 5% of their time talking about the actual cars (interestingly, the Corvette unveil was the complete opposite). The whole event was more like a shareholder meeting than anything else. Seems like you guys are more concerned about your profit than the actual cars you produce.

Not surprising really (anymore). Given BMW-insider, SCOTT26, posts in that other recent thread, paraphrasing, "the main thing that matters to the American market is status." With that type of big-picture view of the USA market, why should anyone expect a different presentation at the auto show?

It's horrifically sad really since I can appreciate the huge amount of engineering that has gone into the F80/82 M-cars. It is more than a bit ironic that Chevy is finely tuned into their customer as the C7 and especially the Z06 event shows.

Anyway, just remember, "status" is the focus of BMWNA now, so stuff like an M3 or whatever the model name happens to be is simply yet another model with its associated market planning business case to be bought to the market and then measured solely on its financial return, particularly warranty expense run rate versus plan. They got what they wanted at BMWNA and put people in charge who could achieve the financial objectives (short term) for now...