Nothing like chewing someone else's tires for free. Santa Anita pavement was terrible (rough, course, broken down) when I attended UDE there before, is it still the same?

 

It's pretty awful. I don't think they get more than 20 miles out of a set of tires, but, as you said, not my tires, not my problem

 

We did two laps in each car and then were free to visit the car displays and try the sprint autocross track where they had a Z4, a Mini JC Works, a three series something or other and an suv.
I drove the Mini and it was a blast but over in 30 seconds.

I think most people underestimate how fun driving a Mini can be if you really let loose. I rented a Cooper when I was stationed in Bahrain, and most of the roads around the base were unpaved back then.

Hoo boy was it ever easy to drift that thing.

 

I remember when Lexus used to do this in DC years ago. They billed it as a luxury event, I saw it as a challenge to see how far an LS could be pushed 😁

 

I've done it a couple of times, and it's worth doing for a free event – I'd say it's maybe 20% of an actual Performance Center experience. They had four models at the last one I attended, an i5 40, Z4 M40i, X3, and either a 330i or a 440i (can't recall which). I ended up driving the i5, Z4, and X3; the Z4 was fantastic, the X3 was very underwhelming, and the i5 was very good for being a fairly large car. Speaking of large (very large), a while back at a BMWCCA event I had the opportunity to drive an i7. While it's a barge, kind of like Alexpapas' experience with the i5 I was impressed by how nimble it was for its size. It can definitely get out of its way (obviously not unexpected since it's an EV), so that was nice, at least. It's out of my price range anyway, but I can honestly say that while it was very nice, it's definitely not the car for me. I also wasn't really a fan of the interior.

If you do the UDE, my recommendation would be to book it for the earlier side of things; as we were leaving, it was starting to get pretty crowded. At the autocross they'll also close off lines for any models that they feel the wait times are getting to long for, so you may not necessarily be able to drive the one you want. I had to cajole them a bit to get into the Z4, which was pretty exclusively what I came to the event to drive. I didn't do the street driving portion of either event, but my understanding is that they take all four models out on city streets and you swap out at intervals so that you end up driving all of them. Those slots were filling up very quickly, so I'd recommend signing up for it as soon as you arrive. Unless you're there when the event starts, you'll likely be waiting a while for your time slot to come up. You are able to do other stuff while you're waiting for your time slot, so it would definitely pay to get your name on the list ASAP.

Also of note, they say that you're only eligible to do one UDE event per year, though I'm not sure if this is actually enforced or not. But given that each event is fairly far apart from one another, I'm not sure you'd really want to do more than one per year anyway.

One thing that made me chuckle: they have different cars setup kind of like a showroom, and the i5's display included a fake level 3 charger. It branded as Electrify America, and even though it was fake I was surprised that it wasn't somehow broken.

 

The i5 was bigger than my i4 M50 and it was surprisingly nimble.

That’s a good observation of yours. I remember when the i5 was new and BMW in Korea was able to match the track time of the RWD i4 e40 with the new RWD i5 e40 which used the same motor and battery. (Only a difference of 181 lbs after all.)

BMW i5 eDrive40 Matches i4 eDrive40 Lap Time At Korean Track

The BMW Driving Center in Incheon has a circuit where the automaker's Korean division evaluates the latest cars. It was the i5's turn.

www.bmwblog.com

I’ve had a couple i5 e40 loaners and did push one of them in the local curves. The i4 e40 feels like it wants to be driven fast in the curves and when you are powering out of apexes it seems like the i4 e40 is easy to drive fast with in tight curves. While I recognized the same RWD motor in the i5 e40 it had a much different feel. The i5 felt really wide and big and I didn’t like its size. It felt like it wanted to be driven at a slow cruise without taking curves fast. However, I was able to go through tight curves with the same speed as my i4 e40, but I had to push the i5 e40 and it required a lot more driving skill from the driver to do it.

I’ve never cared about the Mini. With that size vehicle the GTI has always been the better option. Did BMW get rid of manual transmission already on the 2025 Mini or is it still an option? I was surprised how heavy the new M2 is. My old 2019 GTI SE with manual transmission weighed 3,062 lbs. The 2025 BMW M2 with manual transmission weighs 3,814 lbs. A difference of 752 lbs.
My 2022 BMW i4 e40 weighs only 888 lbs more than its RWD ICE equivalent with a 4 cylinder twin turbo motor…

 

I wonder if people that likes different small cars - have tested the BMW E30 ?
I always try to compare new cars to the memory of my old 3-Series, but nothing compares to the old 1070kg 3-series E30. Unfortunately it rusted away many years ago.

 

When I was at the University and looking to buy my first car (used) in 2003 the E30 on the market were pretty old, beat up, long in the tooth and out of style. I did test drive a 1995 318ti that used some e30 suspension components in the rear with different (non e30) suspension in the front. I guess it was a hodgepodge suspension like the i4 with standard suspension in the front with air suspension in the rear. The 318ti had too much body roll going around a curve for my liking so I didn’t buy one. I never drove an e30. I did drive an e36 325is with manual transmission as a designated driver and loved the planted feel of the suspension. It was a nice ride like my 1993 VW Corrado SLC (VR6) at the time.

Going off of your love for Mercedes let’s mention the famous letters SL for Sehr Leicht.
The 1955 300 SLR race car weighed 860 kg/1,986 lbs.
The street version of the 1955 300 SL Gullwing weighed 1,295 kg/2,855 lbs.
The 1993 VW Corrado SLC manual transmission I bought in 2003 weighed 2,852 lbs according to Kelley Blue Book or 2,810 lbs according to VW. I think you’d approve of that weight.😉
While my Corrado had funky automatic seat belts it didn’t have air bags. They were implemented in the final model year, 1995. The 2025 GTI (3,200 lbs) Porsche Cayman (3,040 lbs) Porsche Boxster (3,097 lbs) and BMW Z4 (3,314-3,543lbs) have the modern safety features and tip the scales at just over 3,000 lbs/1,360 kg with the Z4 being heaviest.
The classic BMW 507 roadster weighed 2,930 lbs/1,330 kg.

 

One of these events is why I'm driving an i4 today. So I guess it works. It's also why I'm driving an xDrive40 instead of an M50