Reading reviews recently on the new 5 series - looks like it is going straight back to the top of the class. I d like the way that BMW are able to combine both handling and comfort, a trait that seems to be unachievable by Audi and Mercedes although to a lesser extent in that MB deliberatley set out for mainly comfort with the E class.

One thing I wish journalists would stop saying about BMW is that their cars are always evolutionary. That is a well known fact in the motor industry that BMW evolve and just continue to make things better rather than start from scratch. A colleague of mine worked for BMW in Munich and it was standard practice. He was even told that is why the cars were codnamed with an E prefice (E39 etc.) as the E was all about evolution an dtaking things and just making them better and better. It is staggering how ill informed the majority of motoring journalists are in the autocar and autoexpress field - but then I suppose most of them are just kids anyway.

Evolution is something that has clearly worked for BMW as they are always some of the best engineeered cars out their in my humble opinion, alongside Honda, Subaru, Mazda and Toyota - again in my humble opinion - and I am not reffering to the type of engineering that aims to give a whiff of engineering by coating handles in rubber or damping switches.