THE VOICE OF NORT? AND WEST VANCOUVER

25 - Friday, May 5, 1989 -

North Shore News

Photo submitted

New BMW 5-Series built
to be strong, aerodynamic

THE NEW BMW 5-Series cars will
be part of a marketing thrust
designed to bring BMW Canada
sales to more than 6,000 units in
the 1989 model year.

The Fives will play a key role by
appealing to achievement-oriented
buyers who have succeeded profes-
sionally and in their private lives.
To these people a new Five will be
a reward of success.

This group is also at a stage in
life where its members are looking
for a car that not only pushes the
right emotional buttons, but is
good value as well. BMW believes
the inherent value (and resale
value) in the 5-Series, and the
unique combination of luxury and
performance will meet the needs of
these buyers.

The new Fives will go head to
head with the Audi Quattro and
Turbo, the Lincoln Mark VI LSC,
and Continental, the Volvo 760
GLE and Turbo, and the Mercedes
300E and 300TE.

Creating a car like the new Five
means a company has to let its
engineers start with a clean sheet
of paper (or computer screen), and
then have the will to let them get
on with the job. And that’s what
BMW has done with project E34
(previous Fives were designated
E28).

The 5-Series development pro-
gram has run parallel with that of
the 7-Series of large sedans in-
troduced two years ago, and has
benefited from the advanced tech-
nology and concepts around which

these cars are built.

The new Five’s four-door tody
and structure have been developed
with the aid of the computer and
the wind tunnel to be strong and
aerodynamic, but also elegant.
Compared with the previous car it
is S5cm wider, !0cm longer and
about 3mm lower.

Exceptional torsional rigidity
(important to handling) and im-
mense strength have been built into
the Five, but not at the expense of
excess weight (the 525i weighs just
1,540kg and the 535i an even
1,600kg). Unique to the Five and
an important contributor to both
safety and improved reparative
ability are what BMW calls ‘im-
pact boxes’ built into the front
structure. :

These built-in devices mean that
in parking lot bumps up to 8km/h,
no damage will be suffered at all.
In frontal impacts between 8km
and 15km the only structural parts
of the body that will deform are
the easily replaced ‘impact boxes.’

Statistics show that 75 per cent

of such impacts occur at rolling:

speeds between 8 and 15km. The
new car’s body will largely retain
its shape right up to 56km/h
(35mph) barrier impacts, surpass-
ing tough U.S. safety standards by
35 per cent.

BMW has also taken care that
the Five’s body beautiful stays that
way with a regime of more than 20
anti-corrosion steps, and the use of
zinc-plated body panels.

Fucl economy, high speed

stability, resistance to sidewinds,
and a quiet interior owe much to a
car’s aerodynamics. BMW has us-
ed the wind to shape the 5-Series
cars, sculpting their rounded,
wedge-shaped bodywork down to
.32 coefficient of drag rating.

But they’ve also made them
beautiful, while retaining that
classic and unmistakable BMW
look, and a high Sevel of practicali-
ty. The designers, who went to the
trouble of recessing the exhaust
system into the floor pan, could
have made it even more
aerodynamic had they chosen to
eliminate things like the already
unobtrusive rain channels above
the doors.

See BMW
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