BMW's next big thing doesn't have wheels

The luxury automaker is setting its designers' and engineers' sights on a totally different kind of "ultimate driving machine."

BMW, in a bid to reinforce its already mighty brand, has decided to help design a two-man bobsled for world competition, culminating at the XXII Winter Olympiad in Sochi, Russia a year from now. The initiative is remarkable not just because BMW designs cars, not bobsleds, but because the automaker is helping the U.S., its most important market, not Germany.

The U.S. Olympic Committee and BMW's North America subsidiary formed the partnership to develop a sled with extremely light properties, such as carbon fiber, and "optimized" aerodynamics. First test of BMW's sled took place last month at the FIBT World Cup championships in Igls, Austria. To be clear, every bobsled must conform to international and Olympic standards -- the amount of latitude open to designers and engineers is limited.
U.S. teams running the BMW sled finished 14th of 30 entrants, though the president of the U.S. bobsled team told a Los Angeles Times blog he wasn't disappointed, given the team's unfamiliarity with the new sled. BMW earlier issued a statement saying it was "thrilled" to be competing with the new sled.

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