Audi BMW

One of the most popular subjects on our blog in the past few months were related to the new BMW X1, the entry level SAV that launches later this month. The BMW X1 offers a new perspective as a compact premium Sport Activity Vehicle. The X1 will advertise itself, as well as the entire 1 Series models, to the more youth orientated BMW fans.

Despite some initial criticism, the BMW X1 is starting to become widely accepted by BMW fans and journalists across the world. The X1 fits into BMW’s strategy to build fuel efficient, but still dynamic cars and it will take on the American market starting in 2011.

In the past, we have been publishing lots of photos, videos and several reviews from prestigious car magazines, but today we’re coming back with an extensive photo gallery of the new color available to order with the X1: Marrakesh Brown.

The odd, but “Eye-Popping Color” has been heavily promoted by BMW on most of their marketing photos and also in private events or auto shows. An interesting choice to promote a new product, but for some reason, we find it to be very catchy, and looking at these latest wallpapers, we’re starting to fall for the X1.

The fellows at IAAblog are bringing us the first photos of the BMW X1 production line at the Leipzig plant. The X1 entered production on September 1st and it’s the only BMW plant that will manufacture the entry level SAV.

At the moment, 75 BMW X1 were produced in Leipzig on a daily base, but production will increase to 300 X1 daily by the end of this year. An X1 needs 40 hours from the first welding to the finished product.

The official launch takes place on October 24 and according to BMW, pre-order numbers have been more than satisfactory.

BMW X1 in production form will be unveiled next week at the Frankfurt Auto Show.

With three days before the official unveiling at the Frankfurt Motor Show, BMW X1 prototypes are still being tested around Munich area. The entry level Sports Activity Vehicle  is aiming at a new demographic: younger crowd, full of energy, people that enjoy outdoor activities, but drive in urban environment as well.

BMW X1 will launch initially in Europe with sales starting in the U.S. later in 2010. There will be four diesel offerings and one petrol with the high-end models, xDrive23d and xDrive28i.

The xDrive23d produces 204 horsepower and 295 lb-ft(400Nm) of torque at 2,000 rpm. This is the second fastest X1 vehicle with 0 t0 62 mph in 7.3 seconds.

In Germany, the entry level X1, sDrive18i starts at 27.200€ while the top model, xDrive28i is priced at 41.500€. While no official statement has been released, we expect to see both a diesel and petrol model being offered in the U.S.

The X1 will debut at the Frankfurt Auto Show next week and we will be there to report live.

Thanks for the photos “lovebmw”!

With three days before the official unveiling at the Frankfurt Motor Show, BMW X1 prototypes are still being tested around Munich area. The entry level Sports Activity Vehicle  is aiming at a new demographic: younger crowd, full of energy, people that enjoy outdoor activities, but drive in urban environment as well.

BMW X1 will launch initially in Europe with sales starting in the U.S. later in 2010. There will be four diesel offerings and one petrol with the high-end models, xDrive23d and xDrive28i.

The xDrive23d produces 204 horsepower and 295 lb-ft(400Nm) of torque at 2,000 rpm. This is the second fastest X1 vehicle with 0 t0 62 mph in 7.3 seconds.

In Germany, the entry level X1, sDrive18i starts at 27.200€ while the top model, xDrive28i is priced at 41.500€. While no official statement has been released, we expect to see both a diesel and petrol model being offered in the U.S.

The X1 will debut at the Frankfurt Auto Show next week and we will be there to report live.

Thanks for the photos “lovebmw”!

BMW is preparing for the X1 launch and they are stepping up their marketing efforts. Recently we have seen the first footage of the new entry-level BMW SAV, but today we have the opportunity to see the first X1 commercial.

The focus of this campaign is once again around the “Joy” buzzword and as BMW says “Joy is what you make of”. For the first time we can see on video which demographic BMW is aiming with the X1: younger crowd, full of energy, people that enjoy outdoor activities, but drive in urban environment as well.

The BMW X1 can fulfill several requirements and it is very flexible when it comes to the owner’s needs. Even though we weren’t big fans of this concept when it came out - we mostly thought it was blend - now, we have to take those words back and the X1 keeps growing on us. The car looks great in every video we have seen so far and it seems to target the right crowd. Owning an X3, we can totally see ourselves moving towards the X1 SAV which can be perfect for the Chicago area we live in.

BMW launched yesterday their X1 minisite and we poked around to see what’s new. The BMW Joy campaign is pretty much present on all their marketing materials, but that wasn’t something we were interested today.

What we wanted to find out for you were the exterior colors available for the X1. So far, we knew that Marrakech Brown is an exclusive color for the X1, then we saw the now classic and beautiful Alpine White, but all the others were still an unknown for us.

Courtesy of one of our reader, Ignace, we are able to show you the entire palette, with some shades more exciting than others.

So without any further ado, let’s enumerate them: Black non-metallic, Black Sapphire metallic, Titanium Silver metallic, Deep Sea Blue metallic, Vermilion Red metallic, Space Grey metallic, Cashmere Silver metallic, Graphite Blue metallic , Tasman metallic and Sparkling Bronze metallic.

And since we always like to state our favorite color, this time we’ll go with the Vermilion Red metallic, for some reason, the design lines are more obvious and accentuated by this color and that makes it our first choice.

The next few days will all be about the BMW X1, so get ready for photos, more photos and again some photos. As expected and seen before in other releases, BMW has made available a variety of photos of the new X1, including the ones we have seen yesterday, but also new unseen shots.

Most of these photos entirely reflect the “Joy” marketing campaign that revolves around the BMW X1 and the targeted demographic is portrayed in many of them. As we said lots of times before, BMW X1 will fit into this product line as a more compact SAV aimed at a younger demographic . Professionals who dwell in projects that identify urbanism.

The BMW X1 offers a new perspective as a compact premium Sport Activity Vehicle. Not only as the first of a kind in it’s segment for the market, but vilifies the entire 1er model line as the more youth orientated BMW line.

So with these new photos, BMW is sending a clear message: this is will indeed be a joyful vehicle and there are high expectations from it.

And since we love you a lot, we decided to take the time to download the entire 177 photos and offer them in a wallpaper format, just in case you like the X1 so much that you would like to set it as your desktop background.

Beside the new official photos released today, BMW decided to delight us with some unique marketing photos of the new X1 which was unveiled earlier today. Continuing their Facebook marketing campaign, most of these photos were hosted on the BMW X1 fan page.

With the risk of being called again fanboys, we have to say that the X1 keeps growing on us. In some of these photos the X1 looks absolutely gorgeous and for once, we understand the market that BMW is aiming for.

Pricing this car below the $30,000 mark and we could see a lot of the young professionals or recent college graduates being interested in such car and why not, even those of us a little bit older could see this car as an alternative to our current ride.

In our opinion a small but powerful engine in the U.S. version of the X1 will be a winner and at 35MPG or more, many of us living in the U.S. will embrace this car. But as BMW announced, we’re still at least a year away from the X1 launch in the United States, so in the mean time, let’s enjoy these photos and envy our European friends.