silverA8L

There is a full review of the VW D1 in the British car magazine - Cars. The review overall for the W12 D1 is excellent. The car's interior and exterior looks great, the interior features are also well sorted out. According to the article, the D1 will not be a money maker for VAG but will be an image booster for VW. (Like the A8 for Audi several years ago)

On the other hand, I have finally seen a new 7-series in person. The front looks great in silver, it's very imposing and very elegant; the design is growing on me, but I still need a lot of time to get used to looking at the rear (or the side with the rear) of the car...

So, I'm defintiely looking forward to the launch of the D1, 7-series, A8 and the new Jaguar XJ8 so the American magazines can do a good comparison against the S-class as well as the LS430

NakedA8

It looks like they hired japanese designers (UGH) to design this car. It simply looks horrible. European cars are supposed to have clean, simple designs, not ugly and clunky ones like the new 745. I've never been a big fan of BMW's anyway, but I always thought they were fairly nice looking cars. The only BMW I'll be considering for purchase will be a K1200RS or RS1100S motorcycle.

Side note: their crappy website is using dithered or anti-aliased fonts which have very poor readability. I've looked at the site at various resolutions, and I am using an ATI Radeon 8500 which has the just about the best display quality available. You would think that this would raise a red flag somewhere....

skiracer

Although I haven't seen one in person yet, the several photos of the new BMW that I have seen cause me to wretch. The front end is OK (I think that the thin yellow turn signals above the headlamps look really cheesy), but the rear end is absolutely hideous! The trunk lid looks as if it came off of a Honda Civic hatchback and simply bolted on *****-nilly, and the tail lamps on the fenders and the trunk don't even look like they were designed for the same car. Yuck! I usually find the BMWs to be attractive automobiles (there are obviously some exceptions), but the new 7 series is a real turd. I also think that the new single-**** does everything concept will not be well received, but that is yet to be seen.

wws03

"it looks like a Honda". My wife usually can't tell cars apart. So if that's her impression, most of the public will probably think the same. I personally like the front very much. The interior is great. I can't really say much about the back yet personally, since it's always a little deceiving until you see it in person.

silverA8L

I thought it looked ugly all around in all the press photos, but when I saw one in real life, the front looks better than expected but the back still need some getting used to. I've seen enough Aztek in town now nothing can compare. Besides, I expect thereseveral new 7-series in my neighborhood in the very near future since most people in my neighborhood has either an S-class or a 7-series plus an SUV. So getting used to seeing them is a good idea for me (I got used to ignoring the Aztek!).

NakedA8

I'm not sure whether this started on musical gear or video gear, but most pro keyboards, mixers and rack modules come with a "jog/shuttle" wheel now which gives more analog-feeling input for parameter editing. They work well for a lot of things and not so well for others. Depending on the implementation of software, or mis-implementation (hehe), it may be useful or infuriating