The BMW 1-Series is a favorite of the team here in Valencia. Quick, stylish, compact and easy to park, it has proper legroom for four real adults (one need not have toothpicks for legs to sit in the back) and decent capacity in the boot/hatchback. So far the 1-Series has not been sold in the USA, though its introduction in 2008 if not before is widely rumoured.

Today we came across this post on the Autoblog, with a "spy photo" of a 1-Series sporting a distributor license/number place ("DST" on the left) driving in the Bay Area. And someone posted a comment saying they had recently seen a 1-Series in Ann Arbor (Michigan), where your Ed. happened to have grown up. "A-squared" as the locals call it is home not only of the University of Michigan -- where a number of BMW ORACLE team members matriculated, notably team meteorologist Chris Bedford (USA) and design team members Alon Finkelstein (RSA) and Brian Baker (USA) -- but also the USA's federal auto emissions testing laboratory. Hmmm....


On the Streets of San Francisco: a rare sighting of a 1-Series in the States.
Maybe Norbert Bajurin, our wheeler-dealer GGYC staff commodore, man-
aged to get his hands on a 1-Series and has traded up from his vintage Rolls?