Nick

Am I going too far by saying the taillights look like upside-down G35 coupe taillights?

Angel eyes belong on BMW's! Still looks hawt though B)

At first glance I actually saw a lot of RL influence in the front and a lot of 7er influence in the rear. I'm not crazy about the design...it doesn't seem too original, I kinda like the current one, while dated, it is classy looking. The interior on this is nothing short of beautiful. I'm not crazy too much about the center stack...I don't dislike it, but it doesn't wow me either. But this is deffinitely a very nice interior. The drive/power train seems pretty amazing....It just seems we were jumping into 7 gears...now 8? Crazy...seems kind of un-needed and hopefully they got the tranny figured out so it won't be always searchign for gears. But I guess if you're going for fuel economy then 8 gears i great, and it's a neat bragging right too I guess if you're into that sort of thing. Seems like it's got a good amount of power and while performance isn't necessarily a specialty of lexus, it should prove to be an very good competitor.

GM has always been known for amazing concepts...it's sad they rarely come close to reality...though lately changes have been made as far as bringing concept to reality...take the solstice and aura for example... they were awesome as concepts, and, while toned down a bit, are/will be quite nice as production versions without losing too much from the concept.

So when are we changing the name to Cheers & Queers?

I live only about 10 miles from the coast, so obviously the beach is pretty local...(hell, the street I live on pretty much takes me straight to PCH). I am in no way afraid of sharks...we don't usually get sharks up close and personal like that...Seals? sure...Dolphins? They can be a pretty common occurrence...Even whales come up to say hi every once in a while...Sharks tend to be very rare out here though...A couple years ago there was that surfer girl who lost her arm...or her leg...or something to a great white I think it was, but ocurrences like that come few and far between. I think that happened more in the central coast too.

Sheesh...this forum is getting more homersexual by the minute...

I'd like to meet up with you guys, but I dunno if it will work out...I've got work which usually holds me up from 3-6 every day...sooo...yea.

......

Personally, I have never tried marijuana, but hell, my dad used to grow the shit in his backyard as a kid. First time he told me about that he mentioned he grew it because "he liked the look of the plant" :rolleyes: At the time I probably believed him because he is into plants and gardens and shit like that, but I learned better and smelled the B.S. :P

\ I want to get everyone to flush their toilets all at once...don't know if it would do anything...but it would be cool.

Money is my anti-drug...it's my anti-depressant too...it's basically my anti-everything...sadly, money is one of the few things that can truly make me happy anymore...I'm happy when I have money, and alcohol passes the time when I don't :P

I would be lying if I said I wasn't fussy and particular :P I can be pretty nit-picky at times. I can understand the issues with the truck though. There have been times where I have needed a truck so I would have to borrow from my parents or friends which I really don't like doing. The Buick sounds awesome and I can respect that a lot. My uncle owns and restores older cars like that and has had a bunch of them. Many of which could give me a run for my money and I know some could all out bitch slap me. My dad is working on restoring his 1948 pickup, and I bet once he finishes that (using the term "finish" loosely) it could put me to shame as well. I know my other uncle at my age owned many cars and did all the work himself and I believe he had a chevelle that ran low 11's. My car is in no way the fastest car around. 0-60 in low-mid 5's and quarter mile in mid-high 13's isn't exactly supercar territory. Nor is it the most luxurious or the best handling (I think we already know where reliability stands :P ) But it is a nice blend of all those, and besides, there is always room to grow...hell, who says I haven't started already? :AH-HA_wink:

Go with the 300ZX, though, it's not a turbo is it? If it is, deffinitely go with that, still sounds cool regardless.

My body is weird. I can gain a lot of weight in a short period, but I can drop it just as easily. I can gain a couple pounds and it can look like I gained a lot. Or I can gain a lot and it looks like I haven't changed at all. I can vary a lot of weight either way in a day. I can work out one night and look great the next morning, I mean, I dunno. My body fluctuates a lot. As do my weight and eating habits...I'm just weird like that.

Well, the weather wasn't that bad up until last week. It has stopped raining...now it's just windy.

Not really. I expected the issues that came along with owning my car. I already knew about most of them. Personally I would be bumming having to drive around a 94 ford pickup every day, but that's just me. I like to drive my car, and I enjoy driving, and BMW's are drivers cars so it is perfect for me. It performs well and it's luxurious and it gets me from point A to point B in style. What more could I want? If something was horribly unreliable then I would have a problem, but honestly, how reliable a car is doesn't really matter much to me. My truck was rock solid. Not one issue with it in all of its 150k miles, but I'd take my car over the truck any day. With BMW's, stuff just doesn't randomly fall apart or break, unless of course you buy the car not knowing what you're in for, in which case, it's probably not the car for you anyways. Infact, if you research enough, you can pretty much know the mile range when a part will fail or needs to be replaced. I got all my parts for the 100k tuneup that I need to do, and after I do that I'll be good for quite a while. So one way to look at it would be like, it's not really unreliable if you know about it and what's going to happen. It's just more or less regular maintenance. Just a litte more expensive than average. But if you do the work yourself and don't buy from the stealer then you're all set. Believe me. If you're into driving, then the driving experience and the car as a whole well outweighs the reliability issues. For me anyways :AH-HA_wink:

I'm up to go...just tell me when and where we are meeting.

I'd rather not talk about it :P Mine would be similar to empowah's, except the M62 engine had significantly more issues than the M52. I picked mine up at around 90,000 miles. 540's while they are great cars, are deffinitely not the car to go with if you want reliability. The radiator went out while test driving it (a common problem which everyone with those cars experiences...crappy bmw radiators...maybe in time I'll replace with an all aluminum instead of the stupid plastic/aluminum crap it has now). The ABS/traction control module also went out when i first got the car, but both issues were taken care of no charge to me from the seller. The clutch went out, but that was inevitable. The car has 100k and the clutch used on the 540 is not really suitable for the power it puts out, so I upgraded that. Unfortunately, my seal between my tranny and engine is going which is causing oil to leak onto the clutch causing it to slip until it burns off the oil. It has been ok lately, but it needs to be taken care of soon...I don't want to risk glazing the clutch or ruining it...not only was the clutch expensive, but so was the install, which worries me about how much it will cost to replace that damn seal. Another common problem that arises is the water pump failure which I have yet to experience. I don't know if it has been fixed or not. Probably won't be a bad idea to replace it soon. My 100k just came up so I ordered up all the parts and whatnot to take care of the big tuneup. Valve cover gaskets, belts, plugs, thrust/upper control arms, oil/oil filter of course, hoses, fuel filter, I need to find a shop that does injector cleaning because that should be done too. After I do the control arms it could probably use an alignment as well. As far as the suspension goes, I'm going to overhaul that eventually. Koni adjustables, eibach springs, eibach sways (and maybe once I gather up the dinero, both shock/strut tower braces from dinan). It's been a good car though and it is a blast to drive. It has it's little quirks, but what car doesn't. It's my baby and I couldn't be happier with it...well... :P

You'd think I would know being that my Uncle owns a fully restored 1953 sedan delivery :P

I'd buy it over that silly Hummer perfume :P

Yea, I think a lot of you would be very suprised how much respect Bimmer guys give GM performance. I belong to one of the largest BMW forums and they praise the vette and LS engines. A common, well known swap among e36 3er owners is the LS swap. Many still choose to do turbos, probably because it is easier and they'd rather retain their stock engines or whatever, but I'm sure most agree that the V8 would be the best choice...I know there is a company that does these swaps, I can't find the website, but here is a link to a writeup on the process... http://www.vorshlag.com/ls1bmw1.asp

My car's a pretty good sleeper as is. I'd say if you are into sleepers, take an M5, take off all the badges, put on bumpers off a non-///M 5er and different rims and you've got a great sleeper. Another awesome sleeper would be to take an e36 3er, gut the engine, and drop in an LS engine. Even BMW owners can't resist the LS engines. They are a very popular mod, they fit in the engine bay extremely well, they are lighter and much more powerful, reliable, and easier to mod than M/S engines, and doing the swap runs about the price of installing a turbo or supercharger.

I know you said you prefer American, but up until SMG came out, pretty much all BMW ///M cars came with manuals (I could be wrong but I believe e36 M3's may have been available with autos) But I know for sure E39 M5's only came in stick.

West Side Represent!