Car Throttle

The joys of being an automotive journalist at an established print magazine? Spending your days testing vehicles like these for the rest of the world to pore over. Ironically, this test incorporates three of our most favorite vehicles from Audi, BMW and Cadillac all into one test - imagine that! One of which, the RS5, was just announced as coming over to the United States. There is no loser here - each one of these is fantastic high-end, high-tech machinery that we would love to have in our drive way. But what is the best of the bunch? Both Car and Driver and Motor Trend undertook similar tests, and produced video footage to prove it. C&D's footage-only video is first, while MT with its video review is second.

The BMW lineup is known as the "Ultimate Driving Machine" for the level of performance delivered by standard cars in the lineup. While that might be changing a bit with cars like the X1 being added, for the most part it rings true. The BMW M3 takes that even further, by any measure an impressive performance vehicle. BMW took the formula a step further with the orange, overseas market-only M3 GTS. Now comes speculation that BMW could be even going beyond that, with an M3 GTS-R. If a power bump, upgraded suspension and braking system, aerodynamics tweaks and a dieting program for the sold-out M3 GTS wasn't enough for you, more could be coming. More as in more weight reductions and more power, as well as further changes to

The BMW M3 is a perennial performance favorite, along with its bigger brother the M5. With that as a canvas, tuners sure have a lot to work with. Enter Vorsteiner, a company known for its GTS3 modification to the BMW M3. If that wasn't enough, they are introducing the GTSR3 package  to take things to another level. The new car is limited to only 100 units. It is like the GTS3, only on steroids. That means its like the coolest M3 ever. Lean and mean in matte green- check out that blacked-out BMW propeller logo. Nice! There is a whole new carbon fiber front bumper with modular splitter, front and rear fender flares, side skirts as well as a wide-stance rear bumper with integrated carbon fiber diffuser. Engine changes include

On Thursday, BMW unleashed their high-performance M3 GTS. The GTS is a $170K, lightweight take on the M3. "Born on the Racetrack to Live on the Streets" is BMW's tagline for the GTS. No new pictures have came out since Thursday, but something better has.

BMW has released not one, but two videos showing the car doing a bit of track time. The first was just a teaser. Unfortunately, the car isn't slated to come to the United States. Oh BMW, you do tease! I've included new high-resolution versions of the previously released GTS images in addition to the videos. Enjoy!

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7wh2FixhXs

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCzDOpVasHM

A lot has been going on at BMW's M Performance division with everything centered around the 25th anniversary of the BMW M5 sedan. A BMW M5 CSL special performance variant was recently introduced (not for public consumption though). This car is a little bit different though. Just recently the rumor mill started to grind about a special performance variant of the M3, to be dubbed "CSL:'. While the new car isn't a CSL (try GTS) the speculation proved to be spot on. Can the the orange color be called "pumpkin"? Halloween was just last weekend, after all. The M3 GTS sets its sights firmly on the Porsche 911 GT3, with prototype variants of the car supposedly lapping the Nurburgring in only 7 minutes and 40 seconds. As

Well, after asking for idea submissions on it's Facebook page in response to BMW's "Checkmate" response ad, Audi has gone up with it's own response, replacing the "Your Move, BMW" A4 advertisement with the one you see above. That was fast! That is the result of Audi's marketing team's hard efforts to counter the BMW M3 "Checkmate" ad. Like many of the entries submitted, the Audi R8 features (not a bad idea). But the ad itself; well as I've said before, how do you top "Checkmate"? You don't. So the results are questionable, to say the least. "Check your luxury badge, it may have expired" (?) What is that supposed to mean and what does it have to do with chess? Nothing, apparently. You might be wondering if BMW will counter with