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Originally Posted by cs4444
Im getting dizzy from all the spin.
If you read Scott's entire post. Bmw's platform sharing would be at the forefront b/c it would be the first to utilize carbon fiber, magnesium, and aluminum, all in significant quantities. Something no manufacture has done over such a potentially large range of models.
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Ah, okay so I see now, BMW invented carbon fiber reinforced plastic and introduced aluminum and magnesium to the automotive manufacturing world. Well let's see, a little company called GM made a lightweight car from steel, aluminum, magnesium, and fiber reinforced plastic. The car was designed starting in the late 1970's. 7 years later BMW copied the concept and called it the Z1 after the Fiero had been on the market almost 4 years. The Z1 was a new way to design and manufacture cars BMW said back then and would change the automotive world, however only GM started an entirely new car company from the design and manufacturing technology.
Oh, and another German company called Audi developed an all aluminum chassis way back in 1978 (saw the pictures of two Audi engineers holding up the unibody in Die Ziet back in the day). While BMW introduced the Z8 20 years later with an all-aluminum front structure that needed to be recalled after stress fractures showed up in the shock mounts. And God forbid the next gen 2015 Ford F-150 with it's all aluminum body (1st for light duty pickups) that shaves 700 pounds from the previous generation model.
But yeah, that i8, it weighs more that the Corvette and is half a second slower to 60 MPH, but hey it saves gas and costs 3 times as much!
But your right, none of these magical feats match BMW being on the forefront of engineering now that it has figured out that front wheel drive is a better packaging solution for small econoboxes (who'd a thunk), and that platform sharing saves design, development and production costs (no one yet figured that out - wow).
Please, save the PR spin for politics; it might work there.