THE VOICE OF NORT? AND WEST VANCOUVER

25 - Friday, May 5, 1989 -

North Shore News

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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 Page 26