Saw these last Wednesday while wondering around the Millenium Park / Randolph Ave. area and then again on Thursday outside of our hotel. They were doing photo shoots and speaking in German.
EDIT - Can anybody ID the blue-green building behind the CNA tower here:
Google Earth and Bing Maps are striking out for me - must be a new building?
Don't know about that building, but based on the BMW concepts, I assume that our color-coded jumpsuits and silver boots should be arriving any day now.
Your building is Roosevelt University.
Finally found it - I guess it is Roosevelt University's new Vertical Campus building.
http://chicago.curbed.com/tags/topping-off-ceremonies
OK, back to concept BMW discussion. I for one really like the i8 in person, I love the greenhouse look with all the glass. Even if it isn't terribly practical.
fastEddie wrote:OK, back to concept BMW discussion. I for one really like the i8 in person, I love the greenhouse look with all the glass. Even if it isn't terribly practical.
Don't know if you did this or not, or when you will be back in Chicago, but it sounds like you would really enjoy an architectural boat tour on the river.
Yep, did a 9:30pm tour from the pier Thursday evening. Thoroughly enjoyed it and had a great tour guide/host with a nice dry sense of humor that had me chuckling throughout. Well worth the $30!
fastEddie wrote:Saw these last Wednesday while wondering around the Millenium Park / Randolph Ave. area and then again on Thursday outside of our hotel. They were doing photo shoots and speaking in German.
Nacht Rider? I knew Hasselhoff was big over there, but they had to go as far as to make talking cars?
Left over Transformers from last summer's filming! lol 
ohhh! I exploded when I saw the i8. that is snazzy.
is it going to have an inline 8 in it? lol
Pix / drawings of the the i8 appeared in CAR magazine months ago, I forget which months issue. I do have to admit that the CAR renderings make the concept appear a little less..."chunky"?
The " i " sub-brand is a supposed offshoot (ala Mini), of the main BMW brand. The " i " cars / vehicles will all be engineered to use new technologies and in particular to up the fuel efficiency of BMW. Think of them as the BMW Prius....which is also about to become a (sub)brand, like Scion is to Toyota. I am probably wrong about this, but the 8 has nothing to do with the cylinder count of the engine.
EDIT....
I just did a Yahoo search of the i8 and BMW's own website tells you quite a bit about the i8. It is a plug-in hybrid that uses an electric motor to drive the front wheels and at some point, when needed, a 3 cylinder gas engine will kick in to up available power/recharge the batteries? The 3 cylinder is rated (currently, as this is a prototype) at 220 horsepower. I guess another way to look at the i8 is that it's the BMW Volt.
