What's Your Favorite BMW?

I was one of the millions of people who saw "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" on opening weekend, and I got a kick out of the two small pieces of BMW product placement in the movie. A new 5 Series owner engages Sport mode to help Spidey reach some a bad guy in a tank, and later in the movie a villain pulls up in an iX3 at night. There have been a lot of tie-in BMW ads, which people have been extremely normal about.

Instead of asking you a question that's particularly related to that, I have a broad question for today: What's your favorite BMW? After the new i3 was revealed earlier this year I asked our readers to tell me about their favorite generation or version of 3 Series, and I'm guessing a lot of you will say the 3 Series or M4 for this too, but you can pick out any BMW from the company's 110-year history. I might even be nice and let you say a concept or race car, too.

This is a really hard one for me. I might be a Mercedes-Benz stan first and an American second, but there are so many BMWs that I really love, and from (almost) every era. I'm one of the enlightened folk who have been on Chris Bangle's side from the beginning, so the E85 Z4, E63 6 Series and E65 7 Series are up there. I adore the 507 and the Z8 that it inspired, the sharknose E31 8 Series and the '60s E9 and all its variants, and oddities like the Z1.

BMW

But my favorite BMW has got to be the original i3. We're i3 lovers here at Jalopnik — you'd be hard-pressed to find an automotive journalist who isn't — so this is surely an opinion you've heard before. The i3 is just plain special. It shows what BMW can do when its designers and engineers are truly set free, and what's possible from a city car. Who wouldn't want a rear-wheel-drive spacepod with a carbon tub, coach doors and eucalyptus trim? Most importantly, it still feels more like the future than any other car from this century. 

I was so disappointed when BMW didn't commit to the weirdness started by the i3 and its i8 sibling, instead entering a too-long period of boring conservatism. Luckily, the Bavarian automaker is bouncing back. The iX was the first BMW since the i3 that gave me the same fizzy feeling, and the Neue Klasse stuff is even better. But what about you? What's your favorite BMW? Let me know in the comments below and I'll round up my favorite answers later this week.