New X3 and other testing vehicles!!

I live in Bishop, CA which is probably the closest fully accommodated town near Death Valley, and BMW rented out a large church for a few days to be a "base camp" for their mules...this facility is about 1.5 miles from my house, and on my way home from work, there were 3-4 X3s, all but 1 without camouflage, and 3-4 Z4s, all but 1 without camouflage. There was also a 7 series there without camo. I am going later to see if we can get pics of them, but I must say that, IMO, this X3 is by far better looking than the current one...

I guess we will have to see how it performs relative to the current model.

we went by to see them again, and there were less vehicles there; only 1 Z4, a 335d, an unbadged F10 5 Series that I mistook for a 7 earlier, and 2 un-Camouflaged x3s along with 1 camouflaged one. The 2 men in the un-camoed X3s were probably direct from Germany, so they didn't speak English very well, I went up and they were on laptops, most likely connected to the vehicles, and I asked how it was going, and they didn't understand, so I just said "good" and made a thumbs up, and they said they need to do more work on them. haha. They also told me that they were going altitude testing, and they'd been to Death Valley before. Pretty cool; I must say.

Originally Posted by stewartfan

we went by to see them again, and there were less vehicles there; only 1 Z4, a 335d, an unbadged F10 5 Series that I mistook for a 7 earlier, and 2 un-Camouflaged x3s along with 1 camouflaged one. The 2 men in the un-camoed X3s were probably direct from Germany, so they didn't speak English very well, I went up and they were on laptops, most likely connected to the vehicles, and I asked how it was going, and they didn't understand, so I just said "good" and made a thumbs up, and they said they need to do more work on them. haha. They also told me that they were going altitude testing, and they'd been to Death Valley before. Pretty cool; I must say.

Betting they spoke perfect English and maybe a half dozen other languages. We are one of the only countries that speaks only one language and they played "dumb" to politely shunt off further questions.

Next time quietly tell them in English; you see small flames coming from under the hood of a distant BMW and see if they look up, Lol.

Aside from that generality.

What no pics? No in depth description? Reminds me of the comment of the air raid description in "Airplane" the movie where he tells every detail except who?

Well, I didn't want to take pics because they obviously wouldn't like it if I did, but if they still have their fleet there tomorrow morning, I'll gladly take my camera. There was one thing I found interesting: they had an F10 5-series there, and it was black, and with black tape, they covered up a 523i badging, which I think is great! Also, he spoke English pretty well, I might have just been a little vague; my first question was "Is it comfy?" and he didn't know what comfy meant...haha, but he didn't seem too closed to my speculation. I also saw 2 Mini crossovers, and a Z4 that looked to have a sportier body kit on it; what looked like openings behind the front wheel wells. But that could have also been part of the camouflage that was on that one. I also saw a couple X5s but they didn't look to be anything out of the ordinary, and the Z4s were only sDrive30i's, so nothing too special there. The X3s looked nothing like the ones I've seen on the internet thus far, they were similar, but not quite. It didn't look too much like this: http://x3.xbimmers.com/forums/showth...91#post7041391 , the window line is too blocky there, and the headlights on the one I saw looked less like a Pontiac G8s, and much closer to the ones on the F10 5 series. There was also a lot less non-body color panels on this than the current one. Almost all of them were body color. It's hard to describe, really, but they looked good. After doing a not-too-in-depth Google search, I didn't find any renderings or photos that looked like the ones I saw. They are better than all the ones I saw online though too. Will post an update tomorrow. Until then, they're driving their beautiful BMWs all over town, TAKING OVER! haha it's amazing!

Originally Posted by Evlengr

Betting they spoke perfect English and maybe a half dozen other languages. We are one of the only countries that speaks only one language and they played "dumb" to politely shunt off further questions.

Absolutely! The girls on the supermarket checkouts here speak perfect English, never mind top BMW engineers working on the latest models

Ok, so I went today, and there were no X3s, they were all actually leaving when I got there. But I did get pics of the Mini crossover and other fairly new Bimmers; I plan on going to check later. And sorry, but I was in a hurry and my camera whitewashed almost all of the pics; I will investigate.

Cars in the pics include the 2011 Mini Countryman, 2010 Z4, 2010 or 2011 X1, and the back ends of the Mini Clubman. Sorry, more pics to come.

sadly, now that I think about it, the ones I saw may have been X1s...I guess I'll have to see...

I ''kinda'' like the new Mini crossover.

I definitely would only take one if someone gave it to me, I wouldn't buy one myself.

So, another trip there proved nothing more than what I'd seen before. This time, though, 4 of them were under the hood of one of the Mini Clubmans (Clubmen...?) and I said "how's it going?" they said it was going good, and I said "It's hot!" they said "well that's why we come here!" and I had another look around, and on my way out, I ran into the lady that basically runs the underpinnings of that church (We know each other very well), and she said "Whatcha up to? Just takin' a cruise through the church?" to which I replied "Of course!" She rolled her head and laughed. I'll cruise by there on my way to dinner with "A friend" and see what else I can find. hopefully something interesting. There was an X3 with camo on, sitting there, but there were people too close so I decided not to take any pics, plus, it was nothing better than wheat's already out there on the web anyway.

Thanks--I am glad they got rid of the "Bangle Butts".

Originally Posted by Evlengr

Thanks--I am glad they got rid of the "Bangle Butts".

ahaha what makes you say that?

Originally Posted by stewartfan

ahaha what makes you say that?

That was the name given to the hideous rear tail lights on the 3 and 5'ers from about 07 to 09 after the BMW designer Bangle.

It was also the weird trunk lid shape on those too.

look at that giant mini. lol.

I was driving down I-85 in upstate SC yesterday and saw a BMW SAV that was camouflaged and certainly not the size of an X5 or X6. Deduced it was a prototype X3 being driven and wanted to hook a U-turn at the exit (but I didn't).

Originally Posted by Evlengr

That was the name given to the hideous rear tail lights on the 3 and 5'ers from about 07 to 09 after the BMW designer Bangle.

Well yes, I understand that; I just wanted to know why you said that about the pics I posted

Took a factory tour today in Spartanburg, where they are preparing for F25 X3 production. On the factory tour, I saw the shell of the new X3 (unpainted, no drivetrain interior or wheels but it had the doors and hood). It looks promising, with "softer" edges than the current X3. The rear taillights are reminiscent of the X1 and the front has a bit of X5-ness to it.

Production of the X3 starts in 13 days.

Originally Posted by AzNMpower32

Took a factory tour today in Spartanburg, where they are preparing for F25 X3 production. On the factory tour, I saw the shell of the new X3 (unpainted, no drivetrain interior or wheels but it had the doors and hood). It looks promising, with "softer" edges than the current X3. The rear taillights are reminiscent of the X1 and the front has a bit of X5-ness to it.

Production of the X3 starts in 13 days.

that sounds good! I was never too interested in the current X3 until recently, as I don't care too much for the exterior looks of the one they have out now. But what I do love, absolutely, is the interior. All the little details in the X3s interior make it probably one of my favorites of any Bimmer that I've seen.

Well, turns out that link that I mentioned above actually was an extremely accurate rendering! Here's the real thing: and the one in the thread I mentioned above (shown here) is almost a perfect rendering...any thoughts on the actual design?

Originally Posted by stewartfan

Well, turns out that link that I mentioned above actually was an extremely accurate rendering! Here's the real thing: and the one in the thread I mentioned above (shown here) is almost a perfect rendering...any thoughts on the actual design?

Of course my sighting is obsolete now since they issued the official announcement, but I did catch the back half of one that was going by as we were sitting down for dinner at a road side Gasthaus right near the Czech border on the 14th. It was wearing the camo of course and the only details I could catch was the light blue paint, which looked good IMO, and the black trim strip along the back which I'm not so fond of at the moment. The color reminded me of the cool water blue that was available on the early models.