# Just got back from test driving E65!



## Mr Paddle.Shift (Dec 19, 2001)

Greg at NewCentury BMW invited me over tonight to the dealership for the E65 party. Food, cocktails, display of E23, E32 and E38 blah blah.... Not to forget 3 E65s. Took a black E65 with 19" wheels for a 30-min spin.

Like what Nate said, I too, believe that the I-drive is a remarkable system. The forced feedback is precise and accurate. Imagine each sub selection (say CD track 1, 2 etc), the knob will produce a notch at each selection. Change the menu and you can feel a different notch feedback. This is perhaps to remind you that you're no longer in the previous menu. The selections on the screen are configured around the boundary. So when you turn the knob, the highlighted cursor will scroll around the selections on the boundary.

I think the misconception about I-Drive is how one can navigate while driving. Thing is you don't need to adjust everything at one time. The basic operation is simple. Scroll and click for desired choice. Sure, ther are 8 other directions the knob can go to. Each direction will bring you to the beginning of a main menu. 









Now you'd be asking: "How do I remember all those?" Well, these selections will be shown on the screen anyway. Wanna change a MD? Push south (see pic above), select MD, turn knob to scroll through tracks and there you have it.

One advice though. Before you test drive this car, throw away all traditional practices of using indicators, handbrake, transmission, and even adjusting power seats. Everything needs a little time to get used to.

Body roll is minimal, handling is fabulous. Suspension is stiff and sporty enough. Had a chance to floor the accelarator on 10-East and the E65 slices through air like an arrow. Some of the down sides are light steering, engine too quiet and nothing else really! 

So it's been almost 2 hours ago since I drove the E65. The conclusion? It's an I DRIVE not a YOU DRIVE piece of machine.


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## bol (Dec 24, 2001)

vince your mailbox is full!


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## nate (Dec 24, 2001)

:thumb:


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## Sean (Dec 22, 2001)

Vince,

I've tried to send you a pm, but your mailbox is full. Sent you an e-mail.


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## JST (Dec 19, 2001)

I actually saw one "in the metal" for the first time yesterday on 18th St. in DC. Despite my almost total feelings of revlusion about the E65 design, I had kept at least part of my mind open based on the comments of some who reported that it looks better in person than it does in pictures. 

Now its closed. 

The E65 is simply, purely, classically ugly. It's grotesque. It's an affront. An abomination. It embodies pure evil, to the extent that an automotive design can do so. It's cover-your-watch, gouge-out-your-eyes and call an exorcist ugly. It rapes the senses and molests the mind. In person, it's worse than in pictures, because there's no way to turn the page or click the little X in the corner to make it go away. 

Is it uglier than an Aztek? Perhaps not in absolute terms. But if "ugliness," defined broadly, includes a monetary component (i.e., how much are you paying for your helping of ugly), the E65 tears it. It's got the Echo and Aztek beat hands down with respect to this criterion. 

I don't think I'll be purchasing one.


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## Mr Paddle.Shift (Dec 19, 2001)

*...*

Hmm...blah blah blah.  JST, 3 paragraphs yet the way I understand is you didn't drive it.

Nate and I based our opinions after test driving the E65, not looking at the E65. So, go down to that dealer again and drive it. :thumb:



JST said:


> *I actually saw one "in the metal" for the first time yesterday on 18th St. in DC. Despite my almost total feelings of revlusion about the E65 design, I had kept at least part of my mind open based on the comments of some who reported that it looks better in person than it does in pictures.
> 
> Now its closed.
> 
> ...


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## Mr Paddle.Shift (Dec 19, 2001)

*...*





Sean said:


> *Vince,
> 
> I've tried to send you a pm, but your mailbox is full. Sent you an e-mail. *


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## Nick325xiT 5spd (Dec 24, 2001)

E65 is automatic. That's enough for me.


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## JST (Dec 19, 2001)

*Re: ...*



VinceTopasBlau3 said:


> *Hmm...blah blah blah.  JST, 3 paragraphs yet the way I understand is you didn't drive it.
> 
> Nate and I based our opinions after test driving the E65, not looking at the E65. So, go down to that dealer again and drive it. :thumb:
> 
> *


I can't drive it with my eyes closed, and I can't sit in it with my eyes open.

Frankly, it doesn't matter if it drives better than anything ever created (though since it's an automatic, that in and of itself is impossible). It could go from zero to 60 in one second, pull 4.5g on the skidpad, get 300 mpg, and I still wouldn't buy one. I have certain aesthetic thresholds that a design must meet before I will consider purchasing it, and the E65 doesn't just not meet those: It knocks them down, kicks them in the head, and pukes on them.

:thumbdwn:


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## DougDogs (Dec 26, 2001)

Just goes to show that you can please some of the people some of the time........

I thought the E65 looked better in person as well.

still waiting for test drive....


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## IndyMike (Dec 19, 2001)

*Invasion of the Bodysnatchers - 2002 version*

This reminds me of the movie 'Invasion of the Bodysnatchers', only we'll call it the 2002 version.

The basic story of the original 1956 verison is as follows:

"Trouble is afoot in a small town although everything appears just fine on the surface. People are telling Dr. Miles Binnell that their relatives aren't actually their relatives. At first Miles assumes its just a mass cass of hysteria sweeping the town. As a logical man Miles assumes there must be some logical cause or catalyst to cause people to start doubting the identities of their own friends and families. As time goes on Miles becomes more suspicious. A strange body is found over at a close friend's house and Miles is called to looking into it. He brings his female friend Becky. At first the body appears like any other corpse. But upon closer inspection, it is noticed that the body has no finger prints and no clear defined features of any sort. It's like the body is still in a process of being formed. The body closely resemble Miles himself which is quite eerie for everyone to grasp. Shortly after this, a host of pods are found in a green house along with a partially formed body. Miles and everyone else deduces that these pods are somehow replicating people and taking the place of who they replicate. This would explain the hysteria of relatives not being relatives. Miles and Becky attempt to notify federal authorities of this danger. But upon trying to call the switchboard refuses to let them through and the operator knows who Miles is. Apparently the pod people have taken the town. Miles is confronted by what were his former friends. They instruct him to sleep so that he too can emerge as they are and feel no emotion at all. That is how the replicated humans are; completely comformed, completely unemotional. Miles battles his way out of town with Becky. A great alarm sounds and everyone chases after them. Becky hides in a cave while Miles looks around. He returns to find his girlfriend Becky has been changed into one of the pod people. Miles finally makes it to a free way. One of the pod people then says "let him go, no one will believe him" Miles tells his story to authories who at first think he is crazy. After trucks carrying strange pods are seen coming from the town Miles was in the authorities start to listen. The movie ends with Miles running through the streets trying to warn America about the dangers of assimilation by the pods."

I hope that long-arsed paragraph didn't put you to sleep.

Anyway, I associate the E65 with 'the pod' and many here have already fallen asleep and been taken over by their new self, and therefore accept the fact from the diabolical and just plain evil Dr. Bangle that this car is 'normal'. So you are now 'pod people'.

Well, I just checked and I still have fingerprints (if you want to check them their on file at my local police precinct), and once these pods start showing up in my area I resolve not to fall asleep until the car has been redesigned to more aesthetically pleasing standards.

So let this be a warning to the rest of you Americans that are not a part of the pod people yet. Don't be assimilated by the pods (E65), and join with me in warning the rest of America.

Oh no, it may be too late;:yikes: I just saw a pod in my area. 

"Honey, perk up a big pot of Kona Blend coffee and help me find those truckers whites that I stashed somewhere."

Remember it folks - "Invasion of the bodysnatchers" - 
Coming to a BMW dealership near you! Rated 'G' (for gross).
Be sure to miss it!   

Anybody think I watch too much TV?


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## Mr Paddle.Shift (Dec 19, 2001)

*Re: Re: ...*

:lmao:

Alright then....the E65 is not your cup of tea.



JST said:


> *
> 
> I can't drive it with my eyes closed, and I can't sit in it with my eyes open.
> 
> ...


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## Alan B (Dec 19, 2001)

*Invasion of the Bodysnatchers*

Excellent flick... Sutherland was great. :thumb:


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## ___lk___ (Dec 21, 2001)

*Re: Invasion of the Bodysnatchers*



Alan B said:


> *Excellent flick... Sutherland was great. :thumb: *


he was great in Kelly's Heroes, too.


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