[watrob]

I was talking to my dealer principal today and he asked about my thoughts on the M3 as he knows I also own AMG cars as well as other BMW's.

The topic ended up on brakes and he said he felt that M division will be heading towards making sports/track option equipment available for there M cars. It sounded like that was the way M had to go due to market forces.

I think the market forces are the actual dealers wanting these option the same as other manufacturers have for there cars. Think there is definitely someting in the wind. I remember in the begining of the year he said there would be option for the 1 series, brakes, sports seats etc and that happenned.

Oh yeh, one other thing, I said no CSL M3 V8, he turned around as he walked away and said "watch this space".

Merc sold either 40 or was it 50 CLK AMG Black Series in Australia this year at $300k each and there's none left as I was offered one on the pre-order. I think the CSL M3 e46 we only got 20 in Australia when they were released some years back and they all got snapped up as well. I think there could be a lot of pressure on BMW to produce the CSL because Merc's AMG Black Series is selling well.

They price these cars that high and pre-sell by orders only they cannot loose anyway. Also manufacturers like BMW & Merc have to get smarter in this tight economy and credit squeeze and supply individual cars to clients as they cannot afford loose one customer, they have to keep sales moving along and just droping the price is not something these companies do anyway. What tends to happen here is we get more option in the car as standard equipment but without price increases.

Yes it will be very interesting times ahead and with this economy we should all benefit, like one of our forum members said "its a good time to buy a new car", specially over the next 6 months, if you cannot make a deal now you never will.

My $0.02