Quote:
Originally Posted by caycep
Chiming in late, and I haven'y read all the posts.
But there is a point to be made here. Engineering is about systems and optimizing for usage situations and use-cases.
In an infrastructure and legal system where most driving is at 10-75 mph, and any more than that seriously increases risks to life, limb and fellow pedestrian/motorists....one can argue the 2 series and all BMW and modern cars are poorly engineered for the purpose at hands. Great cars and full of individual technical marvels. but the OP has a point.
Hence why the Miata is popular with its 130-155 HP motor, as are Kei cars in Japan with 0.6 cc engines...and their owners have as much if not more fun.
In another analogy...there's a reason why in computing, Intel computers and processors are "too fast" and ARM "systems on a chip" are taking over the world...or why individual computers themselves are "too fast" and much of modern infrastructure is run on virtual cloud CPUs...
(speaking as someone who added a miata as a second car to their 228i w/ dinan stage I/shockware...)
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Thank you for adding a meaningful contribution to the conversation.
Following your main point, I would argue that our cars are not poorly-engineered, but are instead over-engineered. That is, they simply do much more than they need to or is necessary. And please believe me, I'm the last guy to argue against that, as wretched excess has been the hallmark of my existence. Thankfully, my parents are no longer available to hear me admit this.
There are, of course, exceptions to that generalization. In my case, I wanted a street/track car. I chose to not take a Cayman/Miata/BRZ (each of which would have been much better on the track (and much less better on the street (for me))). Not being willing to go hardcore two-seater, and, being a BMW guy from way back, I chose the BMW that best fit my needs.
As
Throttlesteer14 has expressed so well, the BMW is not going to hold a candle to the Cayman on the track. However, when I travel to Whitefish, MT for the summer, the BMW is the car for me. The Cayman, as spectacular as it is (and it really is), is not a car I would want to take on a 4K-mile round trip.
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Possibly Interesting Side-Note: Before I retired in the early 90s, I worked for a Japanese Big-Four company. They were making exceptionally high-quality hard drives for a variety of applications. The only problem was: they were
too high-quality. Imagine that, right!
The market was changing so rapidly at the time that the limited size of those HDs didn't allow the manufacturer to recover its costs. It didn't matter that they were insanely reliable; the speed and capacity of lesser drives soon passed them by.
For those who don't understand the concept, there is such a thing as making a product that is so perfect at what it does; and, more importantly, costs accordingly, that the market ends up passing it by before the development costs can be recouped. Then the out-sized profits that were projected never come to pass.
Think...Tesla. Or not. I look forward to finding out while I tool around in my lowly 2 Series!
