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I'm constantly visiting this forum as I'm around one year from getting my own F30. Having just managed to locate the very first estoril blue F30 within range, I think sharing some pictures is an acceptable first post...
They were taken with my phone's camera, but as we have a wonderful bright late summer day here, that shouldn't be an issue.
A few very subjective points:
- Having seen both the 400M and 403M rims in person, I'm still unsure which ones I prefer. If you ask me the 400M's shape is an overall better fit to the sporty lines of the car. They are also quite a lot cheaper (here 720 € less) and very likely handle better then the 403Ms. On the other side I like the 403M's surface finish and color much better, as I think that it complements the estoril blue, and especially the chrome grill, in a perfect way. Nevertheless I still think that the 403Ms are just too elegant for my taste.
- The car's color is really nice in person. I saw it on an F20 m sport a couple of weeks ago but as with most car and color combinations, you really have to see it on the same car as the cars body lines, seams and folds will give it a different feeling. Overall I'm very pleased with estoril blue. It does a perfect job in underscoring or maybe even amplifying the cars sporty, classy and hot-blooded shape. I had a chance of seeing an almost identical but black F30 m sport just minutes before and while the black car had this cool and unique "jet fighter" effect, that seems to be tied to sporty black cars (at least in my mind ;-) ), it just absorbed dozens of body details, which is a shame for such a beauty. As you can clearly see from the pictures, the blue is actually able to give the car's shape a more 3 dimensional appearance (ok, it is actually 3d in both colors but looks even more so in estoril), while the black, in a way, just flattened the whole car (if you know what I mean). As you can see, it was really very bright and the estoril produces a great many of different tones of blue depending on the light's incident angle and shading. It does not, although some of the pictures might suggest otherwise, produce any hue of red, pink, violet or purple whatsoever. I'm really happy about that, as many blues tend to be a bit purple depending on the lighting. The purple that you CAN see on the pictures is just the reflection of the red F20 in the estoril blue. Seems as if even estoril can't overcome physics ;-) . The color also seems to be quite forgiving, as the car was not really clean and had very visible dust on the coating which was invisible from just 2 meters distance. On a black car that dust would have made me crazy. The black high gloss b-pillar is a different story though as you can see... fingerprint paradise :-(
- Concerning the cars overall shape, I have to say that I LOVE IT. I really do. To me the front is the best thing BMW did since a very, very long time. I also love the silhouette of the side lines. Again it is the hood and front area, that I like most. It is really fascinating how the car's designers managed to have it look razor sharp like an arrow from one angle and brawny as a bull from another. LOVE IT! From my point of view, the car's weakest spot in terms of design is it's rear. It isn't bad at all, it is just very underwhelming compared to the other body parts. The m sport rear valance doesn't really improve on that either. As I said, not bad at all, just not reflecting the impression that the front gives. And from behind, I still can't tell it apart from an F10, even if one is sitting next to it...
- I think that I'll stay with the non-tinted windows, as the car on the pictures had. Of course tinting the windows gives the car an even more aggressive look but as most of us are not allowed to tint all of them, the unavoidable transition between tinted rear windows and non-tinted front windows really destroys it for me. I'll go non-tinted and enjoy the clean, not-styled-in-your-80ies-backyard look.
- I love the chrome grill. Of course it is a matter of taste but I really can't see why people would prefer the black grill on the estoril blue. It might be something else on a black, white or silver F30 m sports, but on the estoril the chrome really, really rocks. I could live with a matte or half-matte titanium or magnesium look modded grill, but boring black? Not for me.
- As a last remark, I love the m sport steering wheel. Who the hell would prefer any other steering whell above that 3 spoke "dream come true"? The sport seats are excellent and you US guys should really hate BMW for not letting you get the alcantara. It's perfect.
Now the pictures (I hate this forum's picture size limitations...):
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