SPY PICS: Funky tape disguises conventional 5 Series

We all know there is a Global Financial Crisis going on at the moment, but this is ridiculous.

Luxury car maker BMW is doing it so tough and pulling the purse strings so tight that its elite team of engineers -- the very people who put the sheer driving pleasure into every car they build -- are shopping at factory outlet malls.

As these exclusive pictures show, the best German engineering talent the country has to offer is shopping at the equivalent of a Lowes factory outlet store.

The engineers are so ashamed that the blokes at spy photo agency Carparazzi have done the decent thing and blurred their faces for fear of further embarrassment.

And we haven't even started on the funky disguise tape.

BMW would tell you that this special tape is very expensive, very technically-designed, and layered on the cars to stop pimple-faced kids around the globe from figuring out what the car underneath really looks like, and then putting 26-inch wheels on them in Photoshop.

We reckon the truth is simpler than that. BMW is finding times so tough it has bought in bulk some leftover sticker sets from the latest Kia Soul catalogue.

Now that we've encouraged you (hopefully) to read this far, we should probably mention a bit about the car.

The new 5 Series is due in 2011. The pictures show us that if you could peel the stickers away that (a) you'd have bits of glue under your fingernails, and (b) the next 5 Series has more conventional lines.

It sounds lame, but seriously, look at the flanks? Honda Accord V6 anyone? Then again, that was a lame copy of the old 5 Series. Fair dinkum it's hard to figure out who's copying who these days...

So, what can we tell from the pics (apart from the grim shop in the background that appears to sell shoes with zippers)?

Good news is the next 5 Series will get the really cool LED piping style tail-lights that made it onto the facelift of the current model (thank goodness road rules mean that prototypes have to show brake lights otherwise we wouldn't have much to say).

And the other bit is that some models will get a twin exhaust (one each side of the rear bumper, well it was hardly going to the front was it?) similar to the latest 3 Series. We're going out on a limb and guessing that this one might be a twin turbo six-cylinder petrol engined car. Or, it might not.

Overseas reports have speculated that the wheelbase of the new car is 10cm longer, the track is 2cm wider, and the overall length is no more than 2cm longer than before. Translation: it's bigger.

Any way, what we really want to see is an interior shot. The current car has nowhere to put a mobile phone or a wallet. Which kind of figures. Judging by these pictures the blokes at BMW clearly have no money to spend.

-- with Carparazzi

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