BMW Reviews

Mick Walker is so busy churning out books that he doesn't seem to have the time or inclination to do a good job. This book is a simple rehash of standard info with no insight or attempt to do anything new. It is also poorly written and badly organized. Guess Mick is into the money end of things and only interested in getting this and the large number of other books he has done recently out so that he can gather in the bucks. Get Clymer's BMW R Series 1970 - 1994 if you want info.

... Mostly unenganging, poor on historical details, and basically your boring coffe table book about BMW. I got the feeling while reading this book that this must be your standard issue info book at BMW's musseum in Munich. (I got as close as the Olympiad Colisseum so I cannot testify to that personally.)

On the plus side, you get a list of BMW's internal model codes. That you'll need in anyway in order to follow the book's poorly written structure.

100

This calendar was an absolute waste of money. From the incredibly flaky 80's style neon cover text to the out-of-focus picture of a two year old M5 on December's page, this calendar is a disapointment throughout.

Some major gripes:

This 2002 calendar contains NO BMWs made after 1999. Rather, there is a smattering of mid 80's and 90's cars with a few late models thrown in. There is only one true classic, the 1937 55/319 (the sole vehicle from before 1988). This inconsistency gives the calendar the feel of a used car sales brochure rather than an enthusiast's piece of photography.

The photos are amateur quality. There's just no other way of saying it. Most are poorly composed, giving the feeling of a crowded frame or otherwise leaving an unsettling impression on the viewer. Several are simply out of focus. One or two motion blurred photos (to give the impression of speed) I could understand, but the photos in this calendar are poorly taken, pure and simple.

The style is ambiguous at best. The photo of the 1937 55 takes place in a grassy meadow with a middle-aged woman and her two victorian children. Other photos resemble the snapshots often seen in clasified ads. At the calendar's very best, the photographic quality is about on par with that of a 80's BMW poster (indeed, many of the photos look recycled to me). For those who care, the calendar appears to have been taken with 35mm print film, yielding grainy photos with poor contrast and saturation. Not one of the photos exhibits a creative or unique perspective.

In short, I regret this purchase more than any I have every made from Amazon. World of Discovery, the company which makes this calendar, has proven to me that they do not deserve my business in the future.

Hopefully you're disuaded enough, but for those who wish to read on I've provided a summary of each picture:

Cover: Horrible, grainy charcoal background with neon yellow and blue "BMW" in large letters at the top. "Year 2002 Sixteen Month Calendar" in light gray (partially erased???) letters below. Gross faux metalix bars behind text. A 1994 8 series cut and pasted from inside the calendar.

Inside Cover: 1994 6 series on a cloudy day against a green field. Just your average 3/4 view.

January: 1999 Z8, long telephoto shot taken at a diagonal. The best photo in the calendar. Actually pretty in-focus.

February: 1999 Z3 M Coupe on a grass-lined road from the side, heavily blurred. Taken at a slight diagonal, and not a bad example of effective motion blur (for this calendar, anyway).

March: 1999 Z3 on a beach. Bad lighting, bad contast, 3/4 view while driving. Yuck.

April: 1994 M3 Convertable on a grass lined road. Side shot with background heavily motion-blurred. Driver is too prominent.

May: 1989 M3 Sport Evolution sitting on a gravel parking lot on a (depressingly) cloudy day. Close up front view. Distracting bright blue fence off to the left.

June: 1999 318ci. Rear 3/4 view on pavement on a cloudy day. Frame is way too crowded.

July: 1994 8 series from the cover. Covered in raindrops with a natural post-rain background (obviously cloudy). Boring, overly emphasized background.

August: Side shot of a 1988 Z1. Bad lighting, but at least a little sun.

September: Totally blurry 3 series coupe. A really, really crappy 3/4 front shot of the car while driving. Sunny. Ugly.

October: 1937 55/319 in front of a grassy hill. Victorian mother and children playing next to it on the grass. Depressingly cloudly photo.

November: 1994 7 series sedan. Blurry for no good reason. Just an ugly, horrible photo.

December: Red 1999 M5. Blurry (the car is sitting still, for crying out loud!).

I ordered "BMW GSing Around the World" directly from the author's web site. This book is a real rip-off and I'll send it back. It's 170 pages long (instead of 200 as advertised) and 30 of these are advertising for partner companies or for the other books from the same author. Remain 30 pages of text (one third of it for the "Big Dog" ride alone) and around 100 pages of totally uninspiring grainy black-and-white postcard-size pictures of a printing quality that doesn't even match a daily newspaper. Half of these show Mr Frazier's motorcycle in front of a road sign or at a mechanical workshop. The other ones show the motorcycles of Mr Frazier's encounters on his trips along with their owners in uptight poses. Unfortunately nothing is said about these very interesting people except for their citizenship and the model year of their faithful GS... "BMW GSing Around the World" is not only a rip-off but a show of disrespect for other long distance motorcycle travellers.

This title I find to be to racist for me to even consider