Hang on to your BMW!

Then, at 3:15 p.m. on Tuesday, the truck driver, Donald Wilson, got a call from his towing company telling him to return to the yard without releasing the car. But the BMW's owner jumped onto the truck as it pulled away, the police said, hanging on like a bird atop an elephant as the truck rumbled through Great Neck. For the next two miles, the woman, Yan Li, 33, of Forest Hills, Queens, stood on a running board and clung to the driver's side door while Mr. Wilson, 41, drove 20 miles per hour south on Middle Neck Road, the police said.

"He knew he should have stopped, but he didn't," Detective Sgt. Robert Anderson of the Nassau County police said on Wednesday. "The driver should have just stopped, called the police and said, 'She's interrupting my work.' " As they drove, Ms. Li tried to call 911 on her cellphone, but Mr. Wilson reached out his window and disconnected the call, Sergeant Anderson said. But a friend of Ms. Li's, who had been left behind in the Waldbaum's parking lot, called the police, who pulled over the tow truck near an entrance to the Long Island Expressway. Mr. Wilson was arrested on a charge of reckless endangerment, and Ms. Li, who was not injured, faces no charges. Ms. Li got her BMW back from the towing company, Nationwide Towing, which would not comment on the incident. Mr. Wilson's tow truck, police said, has been impounded with North Shore Towing.

BMW means "Brings Me Women!"

According to a new German car magazine survey, BMW drivers have all the luck.

BMW drivers have more sex than owners of any other cars and are much more active than Porsche drivers. The German magazine "Men's Car" found in a survey of 2,253 motorists aged 20 to 50 published in its inaugural May issue that male BMW drivers say they have sex on average 2.2 times each week while Porsche drivers have sex 1.4 times per week. Following BMW drivers were Audi (2.1), Volkswagen (1.9), Ford (1.7) and Mercedes (1.6). Drivers of foreign car makes were also behind BMW with Italian cars (2.0), French (1.9), Japanese (1.8), Swedish (1.6) and Korean cars (1.5) trailing after. Among women, French car drivers were top with 2.1 times per week followed by Audi (2.0), Italian (2.0), and BMW (1.9) with Porsche again at the bottom of the scale at 1.2 times per week.

"They told me 'it flies', but I didn't believe them!"

Charge it; or should we say, Love lost!

Courtney Love claimed that she has been swindled to the tune of US $40 million, while an ex-business associate said she owes at least US $4 million. "I found out that our dog walker was making $100,000. One person put a BMW on my credit card. My daughter's trust fund has been stolen from to the point where she may have, like, nothing. I can't let this happen to Frances," she said, referring to her daughter Frances Bean Cobain.

Too Heavy for Norway

The Al-Qaida has threatened to turn Norway into an “inferno” but it seems that Mr Kjell Magne Bondevik, the Prime Minister, will just have to take his chances, according to a news report from The Statesman. His new four-ton armor-plated BMW is being returned to the manufacturer because it is 88 pounds too heavy and therefore in breach of Norway’s strict road-safety laws.

Original proposals to remove 88 pounds of steel armor have been turned down by the police — the car would be just as vulnerable as a normal limousine — and so BMW engineers will have to solve the puzzle. The most likely solution is that BMW will throw out the back seat. This might be a politically wise move. The debate is not so much about Norway’s sensitive roads or about the strange power of its vehicle registration authority as about the limits of an egalitarian society. The gap between rich and poor is narrower than anywhere else in Europe. Scandinavian countries have long been proud of their bicycling monarchs and Norwegian, Danish and Swedish royals pop in and out of supermarkets without much ado. Since the killing of Anna Lindh, the Swedish foreign minister, in a Stockholm department store, politicians now shop with a bodyguard, but in other respects they still rub shoulders with voters. The voters watch hawk-like for any arrogance or showing off. When Mr Bondevik’s chauffeured car was caught exceeding an 80 kmph speed limit, the press took him to task. The older generation still fondly remember the late King Olav, who took the tram to work; they cannot quite get around the idea that politicians need chauffeurs. Younger Norwegians, meanwhile, are more worried about hypocrisy: a government committed to budget cuts is ready to splash out on a new BMW 7 series for the Prime Minister. They are annoyed by the reclining leather back seat which would allow Mr Bondevik to sleep between appointments. If the BMW engineers get rid of that seat, much of the popular anger will have been diffused. For the time being the Prime Minister will have to travel in a more modest 1998 BMW which has clocked up 255,000 km. The crushing imperative for equal treatment of leaders and led, and the suspicion of ostentatious wealth, stem from the country’s Lutheran roots. Mr Bondevik is himself a Lutheran pastor. As a Christian Democrat he is also vulnerable to attack from the Social Democrats and other leftist groupings who are quick to complain about abuse of privilege. The current champion of the Little Man’s rights is Mr Bjoern Olberg, head of the vehicle inspection center where the Prime Minister took the car to be registered. “The law is the same for everybody...”

BMW Z4 Stuck in Switzerland...

"I knew I should have bought the X5!"

What's wrong with the MINI?

The execs were surprised when the MINI scored below average on J.D. Power & Associates annual survey of initial quality. Jack Pitney, MINI USA general manager, told the Automotive Press Association in Detroit, that the key reason for the score was the lack of an adequate cup holder. The lack of a good cup holder has been the number one complaint about the cars, though there also is a vocal minority of MINI owners who think the car should be equipped with a rear-facing fog lamp. The fog lamp is on its way, Pitney said, but the cup holder will have to wait for the next redesign. However, MINI is providing owners a special coffee cup that fits into the existing cup holder. "You can have your (tall) latte and drive a MINI too," Pitney said.

Gerhard speaks...and people laugh!

It seems that BMW Motorsport Director Gerhard Berger has a way with words. Did you hear the one about BMW-Williams F1 driver Ralf Schumacher? Seems that Ralf has been thinking about wearing glasses ever since he found out they improved his vision. So Gerhard says, "we've got to find out which way he's fastest - with lenses, glasses or blind." Now, everyone wants to know about the performance of BMW engines, especially the number of revs in BMW's Formula One engine, a closely held secret. Gerhard's response? "I used to keep quiet about money and women. Today it's money, women and engine revs."