Watching this video gets me all kinds of pumped up, crazing the canyon-carving driving and deep exhaust tone from the hot sedan. Always loved from afar, the M3 has always been a ride I would love to add to my stable. Even as a fanatic Audi fan, I will admit the allure of the newest BMW M3/M4s is big, and when built right, these rides just seem the be the best thing on 4 wheels to hit the roads as of late.

The Imola Media team does a great job of capturing the elements that make this ride special, desirable, and fun, tapping into the carnal desire we all have as automotive enthusiasts.

So sit back and take it all in, let your mind wander to the canyons and listen to every note of that beautiful exhaust. It should get your heart pumping.

The post I Suddenly Want a BMW M3 appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

Now you can buy engraved or drilled door handles all over eBay, but to these two jugheads they were all just too common or too out of place on a BMW – especially the aftermarket drilled handles. So they 3D printed an example of their perfect handle with an M division stylized E30 logo engraved in it and started driving around machining shops to get them made.

To hear them tell it, most of these shops wouldn’t give them the time of day because it just wasn’t worth the shop’s time to crank out two handles on one of their milling machines. However, the shops said the order was for at least 25 pairs they’d be happy to mill out the handles.

So off to the forums, car shows, and social networks they went to see if 25 more people would be interested. Turns out they were. There were 50  pre-orders booked within 48 hours and Act of Congress was born. It was time to start cranking out handles.

Since we’re such big fans of vintage BMWs, especially 2002s and E30s, we had to check these out once we caught wind of the project online. The handles they’ve created are precision milled out of solid billet aluminum for lightweight and corrosion resistance, then powder coated matte black to match the OEM finish. In fact, the Act of Congress E30 handles match the OEM E30 handle dimensions perfectly thanks to some handy 3D scanning.

We threw on a pair to a super secret project car we’re working on (more on that coming soon!) in all of about 10 minutes. Seriously, it’s two phillips screws on each handle. The fit was just like the factory ones, but the handles are more robust. The E30 engraving is nice and subtle, nothing you’ll notice from across the street, but instead something you’ll see every time you open your door. These are a really nice upgrade, and something that’ll help our project stand out at the shows.

Next up from the Act of Congress crew are a lighting upgrade, some more cosmetic pieces for sale, as well as a few secret parts. For now they are concentrating on their handles and setting up their business, but we’ve seen their other rally-inspired parts and they are something special. All that’s left is to ask, can you handle it?

Yeah, sorry about that…

The post Act of Congress Wants to Upgrade Your Classic BMW appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

Let’s be honest, if you and your car were in a relationship the car would be the one doing all the work to keep the love alive. It gets you where you need to go, it hauls around your stuff and helps you move, and it is your rolling private concert hall. You on the other hand neglect it, bump it into things, and sprinkle it with crumbs and skin flakes. Your vehicle is clearly the heavy lifter here, but it doesn’t take much to rescue your relationship. With just an oil change, an air freshener, and giving your car a great name, your love might just be rekindled. So let’s get to it and name your car.

Naming your car is the going steady of the car world. It elevates your relationship to the next level and makes you care a lot more about your ride. Heaven forbid you might even take better care of it. But what to name it? Ah, a question as old as time…

40% of millennials name their cars according to eBay motors, and the most common car names are Betsy, Betty, Bertha, Bessie, and Baby – no joke, they all start with “B” for some reason. Us millennials are just as crazy as they say. But there’s no need to follow the pack and a B-list name (see what I did there?). Mobil 1 has created the ‘Namulator’ to help you create a name for your car based upon your and your car’s personality and you can even show it off online. We did it for FactoryTwoFour’s vintage 2002 and got Rad-Rod – which is radical.

If you want to adorn your chariot with its pitch-perfect name, Mobil 1 will create and send you a license plate frame with it printed on for you. To really take your relationship with your car to the next level, buy 5 quarts of Mobil 1 synthetic motor oil at AutoZone, Advance Auto Parts, or Pep Boys and visit the Namulator site to get hooked up. So in other words, you can do that Mobil 1 oil change you need anyway, throw in an air freshener while you’re at it, and make your car’s name official in one big fresh for 2017 swoop. Welcome to a healthy automotive relationship.

The post Let’s Name Your Car appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

All good things must come to an end. Unfortunately, this isn’t true of all bad things. This was the thought that kept running through my head as I spent two hours attempting to extricate my bike from a small pit that was barely bigger than my bike itself. But we’ll get back to that…

A full year has gone into this gentlemen’s bet between Gary and I. We bought dual sport bikes, learned how to ride them in dirt (and Gary learned how to ride a bike period, as this was his first), we upgraded to BMW 650 adventure bikes, outfitted them for overland motorcycling with equipment, and then learned how to ride the fully laden beasts offroad. However, we weren’t in lockstep on all points. Indeed, because of our personalities, our strategies and tactics diverged almost immediately upon kicking off The Bet. Gary is a “learner” and likes to read about equipment or techniques before trying them. During the course of this year, this generally meant he was much slower to attempt new skills or difficult situations during our offroad training. But once he had done the homework on it, he would generally crush that skill with no problems. I am more of a “doer” who (violently) hurls himself against new situations and obstacles to learn. Sometimes this meant I gathered skills and experience faster than Gary, sometimes it meant a broken bike or body.

I was also much more willing to allow for broken bike parts, though, as I’m more mechanically inclined than my opponent. In fact, just a few weeks ago he happened upon me out in the garage practicing a tire tube change in case I got a flat. I was struggling mightily (because I was doing it wrong…); he took one look at the sprawl of parts and tubes and decided he wanted no part of it. He declared that it was “unrealistic” to expect to successfully get the morbidly obese bike up on its center stand, remove the rear axle, and change a tube while in the wild of the desert. He decided to risk it instead.

One thing we agreed on was meticulously planning our individual routes on Google Earth and creating rally pace notes to guide us on our two day solo journeys across the desert from LA to Las Vegas. A quick reminder of the rules: we each had 100 miles to get out of LA, and then we had to be off any kind of paved road. After that, we each had 30 miles of paved road to use as we wished to get gas or avoid obstacles. Riding was only allowed between 6am and 8pm, and we could rejoin roads within 10 miles of our destination – The Bellagio Hotel. And so it was that we packed what supplies we each thought we’d need, set up our secret routes, and headed out of LA at 7 AM on Friday the 26th of August 2016 – one year from when The Bet started.

For me, the race stared on an almost immediate wrong turn – literally. Gary and I rode together through town and onto the first freeway. Then, at the first freeway interchange he thought we were both taking, I made sure he was in front of me and ducked back off the off-ramp at the last second leaving him careening towards his offroad starting point and me towards mine. It was 20 miles after this, when I was feeling ever-so-smug about fooling him about my route that I absentmindedly merged onto the correct freeway but heading the wrong direction. Instead of seeing the San Gabriel Mountains, I started seeing signs for the beach and the very freeway I had left Gary at. Pulling over and consulting my map, I found I had indeed travelled 30 minutes back towards the coast. After being so diligent at marking my rally notes with the direction of every dirt trail and path I was going to take, I neglected to mark the direction of the freeways. An hour wasted just getting to the mountains that denote the end of Las Angeles and the beginning of our offroad portion.

Finally off the tarmac, progress proceeded smoothly… at least for a while. The BMW acted with aplomb even fully loaded. There were a few sections of my dirt path that were unexpectedly fenced off and I had to use about a mile of my 30-mile allowance to get around and back to dirt, but other than that it was smooth sailing. As civilization faded more and more behind me, I finally encountered the sight that signaled my secret plan – railroad tracks. You see, rather than pick through the spider web of dirt trails and single tracks that crisscross the desert like Gary would be forced to, I had an alternative plan. A good friend of mine pointed out that all railroad lines have truck-wide access roads running alongside them that are smooth as butter at least as far as dirt roads go. And wouldn’t you know it, there’s a rail line that goes directly from LA to Las Vegas. This was my masterstroke that meant even with my wasted hour, I’d still finish ahead of my rival. In fact, I was so confident in my route that I booked the Vegas hotel room a night early because according to my math, I would get there in one day instead of two.

So I came to the first railroad track and immediately attempted to go for it. And I got stuck. Rails, it turns out, are the perfect height to stop my back tire from finding purchase. Gingerly, I backed the bike off the tracks and realized that a major assumption I had made – one that would have been easily testable at any point of the year leading up to this – was dead wrong. I would be stuck on one side of the tracks or another until a pre-built crossing point came up. Undeterred, I progressed forward on my access road for a few minutes when a train came charging down the tracks. That is to say, less than 10 minutes after I had gotten my bike stuck trying to cross the track a seventy billion ton train came down that line at 60mph. So much for the second assumption that the line would be quiet. In fact, I had trains coming along every 15-30 minutes. This became especially “fun” an hour later when I had my first one through four of 14 total crashes.

The rail line had come to a ravine and my access road disappeared or split off where I didn’t see to follow. There was plenty of room on the basalt rocks surrounding the rails for me to get to the other side of this cut in the hill, and I successfully did so. But then following this section, the rail was built atop a tiny culvert that was meant to carry storm water under the line. The culvert was no more than 10 feet long and there was barely enough room for my tires and feet to scoot by on an aggressive angle, but if I slipped I would have fallen 10 feet down into the culvert. Rather than risk it, I decided to ride down the steep side of the culvert then gun it back up the other side. This was a terrible idea.

Fall #1 of the trip came just going down into the little valley no wider than my bike. Fall #2 came after I spotted my access trail off to the right, but blocked by a sandy berm that offered my tires no grip. Fall #3 came after I turned the bike sideways and attempted my original idea up the other side back to the tracks – again no grip was on hand and it was offensively steep. It was midday, 100 degrees according to the forecast, and I was wresting a 400 lb+ bike in full Klim motorcycle gear for about an hour while trains tore by at about head height. Needless to say the headache I felt come on was a bad sign of heat stroke and I needed to take a break. I tore off all my gear, grabbed my gallon jug of water, and crawled into the water pipe for shade and contemplated if and how I was going to get out of this increasingly hopeless situation. The emergency beacon on my chest was ever-tempting as there were only three ways out of this culvert, and I had failed at all of them.

After an attempted rest inside the shaded water pipe – trains going by four feet directly OVER you are even more disturbing than trains going by eight feet beside you – and a good drink of a liter or so of water I had a plan. Firstly, I took the lid off my SW-Motech pannier. Then using it as a shovel, I smoothed out the sandy berm leading back to the dirt road. Then on this ramp I had created, I scattered the railroad’s rocks. Finally, I collected all the scrap wood I could find and laid this on top of the rocks and tamped it all down by walking over it. I had built myself a road to freedom (hopefully), but if it didn’t work my race was likely over and lost. I removed the panniers for added lightness, picked my tire tracks, and fired the bike back up. A train came by to bear witness and I gunned it towards my ramp. My bike scooted up the improvised road, destroying it in its wake, but nevertheless depositing me back onto my trusty dirt road. Never does victory tasted so sweet than when it is snatched from the jaws of an emergency rescue team.

After reattaching my luggage and traveling on for some time, I realized I was suddenly in a race. With an hour lost on LA’s freeways and at least 2 hours lost in the world’s smallest and cruelest valley, there was no way I could get to Vegas before the agreed-upon sunset curfew forced me off my bike. And as this trip had already taught me, the going even on my access trail was anything but easy. In my mind, Gary and I were now neck-and-neck. Suddenly the tent and sleeping bag I brought just to fool Gary were very necessary.

The rest of that day had decent speeds, undeniably beautiful views of the Mojave, trestle bridge crossings, and a few more falls. I had been ingesting Clif bars all day and on my last fall I decided to partake in another and read the nutritional facts. Huge mistake number three (or four; who’s counting?) dawned on me as I realized I had only taken in 1,500 calories all day and would need my last two bars to get me to at least midday tomorrow and the only gas stop of the second day. This lack of energy hit hard as the sun began to set at 7 PM and I encountered my fifth sand patch of the day and crashed a few more times. Although it would be soft for my sleeping bag, I refused to let it beat me or to start my day tomorrow stuck in this horrible excuse for substrate. I pushed on and out, finding solace on the rocks of the train track, and rode on half-blind with hunger and fading light. Finally, at 7:45 PM, just 15 minutes before curfew, I spotted a secluded and solidly grounded spot to camp and preceded to hangrily set up my tent for a night in desert.

This is a massive tale already, so I split it up into two parts. 
Go take a break, get some coffee, then catch the finale here. 

The post The Bet – Overland Motorcycling Pt 7 appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

Having started the race on around four hours of not very solid sleep, not eating enough, and generally beating the hell out of my body for 12 hours, I slept like a sack of wet dirt. I slept so well in fact, that I didn’t wake up until 7 AM – an hour after sunrise and the riding curfew ended. Mistake number four, and another hour lost. This day brought much of the same – breathtaking scenery, sand, decent speed, not decent crashes – and was overall proving to be much more difficult than I had imagined. After my last fuel stop, and another protein bar taken in, I was headed towards my last 43 miles until civilization and the finish line.

It was this stretch, this final stretch, where I really had fun. The dirt roads were excellent and allowed for 50 and even 60 mph in spurts, but moreover they were fun roads that the BMW could lean and buck with. 10 miles down, then 20, then finally 30 miles were consumed rapidly. With only five miles until re-entering tarmac, my final disaster struck. It was 3 PM, I was still low on calories, and I was mentally worn down from all the fast offroad riding and the impending end of the race. In the middle of wide-open track, with flat space surrounding me, I hit the only boulder around, smashed off my right-side pannier, spun the bike around and crashed hard. I was beside myself with fury and rather than attempt to fix anything decided to press on. I rode that fury through the last three miles of dirt, harnessed it on the Las Vegas freeway to zero in on The Bellagio at not-quite legal speeds, and finally felt it leave me, now more drained than before, as I approached the check-in counter at 4 PM, not sure what my fortune would be.

The helpful check-in girl didn’t bat an eye at this disheveled human with wild hair, a dirt-colored face, strange technical clothing that squeaked with every movement, and more mud and dust than the marble palace of the Bellagio had likely seen in some time. At first she couldn’t find the reservation – only natural since it was for the day before. And when she found it, her puzzled look didn’t go away. She looked up, and with a fake customer service smile informed me that someone else had already checked into the room.

I had lost.

Gary had checked in at noon; four hours ago, or exactly the amount of time I had lost because of my many and various mistakes. Crushed, I collected my key and squeaked my way through the tourists and their casino to ride the elevator up towards the victor. For 23 floors I debated what I would, what I could say to Gary. Stepping off the elevator, the dread closed in and I made my way towards our room. Resigned, I flung the door open, reached out my arms, and belted out “Congratulations to the Better Man. You deserve it.” At this, he was very confused. With a quizzical smile, he asked me, “Why, did you get disqualified too?” Much confusion abounded. “Did you get my text? I disqualified myself.” I was too off balance to know how to react, but slowly it dawned on me that I had won. I HAD WON! After all the pain, and misery, and effort, I had won.

Over a much-deserved steak dinner that night (after the greatest shower man has ever known), Gary relayed his story to me: He too had a secret plan to follow access roads (power lines for him) that would see him finishing in a single day as well. However, an hour into his offroading time, he ran afoul of a nail and got a flat rear tire – the very situation he had declined to train for. To his credit, he somehow rode that flat tire in sand for 15 miles (that’s basically hard mode) into town. Then he had to be towed 20 miles into a slightly more real town to have the tube replaced. Hours lost, he had to then ride those 20 miles back to his offroad route. This unexpected detour guaranteed he would go over his 30 mile paved road allotment for the race and sunk him completely. He spent the rest of that day offroading on his trail (like a champ), and then stayed at a hotel that night. The second day, he woke up and took the freeway the remaining 30 miles into Vegas since he had already lost, and that is how he got there four hours before I did.

This was a year in training, capped by two very hard days for both of us. The race was significantly harder that I thought it was going to be, and that’s what made it excellent. We both know that the race taught us a lot – in skills, experience, and broken parts. But the biggest thing it taught me was that I want more of these overland motorcycling adventures.

A huge thank you to all the sponsors of The Bet: Klim, SW-Motech, Twisted Throttle, Wolfman Luggage, and REV! IT.

We’ll have video of this adventure coming soon…

The post The Bet – Overland Motorcycling Pt 8 appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

There is no more time left to prepare. No more scheming, plotting, or psychological warfare can occur. The race begins in less than 24 hours now. All the equipment and parts have arrived, tire changes and roadside repairs have been practiced, now all that is left is to be punched in the face by the reality that is the Mojave Desert.

For a year now my competitor Gary and I have prepared for this. Five rear tubes, 20+ crashes and countless mistakes later, we are hopefully wiser and somewhat prepared for the two day solo trek through the desert. Neither of us should be anywhere near the other competitor as we have independently chosen our routes and we are starting roughly 50 miles apart. With no GPS allowed, each of us will have to memorize, chart, and follow our own route on paper maps and rally notes. Water, food, and camping supplies will have to be packed in. Same for spares and tools should anything go wrong.

The winner will be crowned the Better Man because he will have had to navigate the desert, deal with the eventual problems, and do it all at a quick pace. There will be no do-over of this bet and at no point will another “who’s the Better Man?” challenge be accepted between us. This is for life.

Speaking of life, it has occurred to me that there are some strange incentives to this bet. This is not a case of “the best revenge is a life well lived.” Say that I win (because if I don’t I’m moving to Europe forever), then the best thing I could do to shove it in Gary’s face would be to ruin my life. Let me explain – If I become a trillionaire who own modeling agencies, private jet companies, and an opium farm while Gary becomes Asst Kennel Cleaner at the local animal shelter, then obviously I truly am the Better Man and I really didn’t need the title to rub it in. And if we both become trillionaires then the title is just an asterisk to denote between equals. No, the best thing to do after I win is to become a syphilis-riddled street shambler who yells at seagulls and attempts to trade his shoes for a can of Four Loko at the corner store near my cardboard dream home. Only THEN will calling up Rich Gary every day to remind him that I’m the better man have any actual sting to it. So I guess that’s my plan.

As I prepare to buy my final supplies of water and food, I’m filled with competing emotions. I have a deep lust to be out in the middle of the desert, completely alone for hours in every direction, and soaking in the beauty of it. However, I am also aware that it is going to be 100 degrees in the middle of the Mojave and surely not all of my planning will go off without a hitch. Things will go wrong, as they always do. In a race it is difficult to “enjoy the journey” in those times and remember that you are making memories. I will have a stopwatch in my head for two days and will only relax after I have checked into the hotel with a time stamp of my arrival. I will attempt to appreciate the journey as mush as possible, but in the end this is a race through the Thunderdome that is the Mojave Desert – where two men will enter, but only one Better Man will leave.

Click here for Part 7, the final installment and the the big race!

The post The Bet – Overland Motorcycling Pt 6 appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

The standard ATS received strong praises for its excellent driving dynamics, but the ATS-V takes the game a few levels up. It’s built on GM’s lightweight Alpha platform (a platform which will be shared with the next-gen Camaro). It’s a rear wheel drive platform and as you can imagine, it’s reserved for sport sedans and coupes. The engine powering the ATS-V is a 3.6 liter V6 strapped with two turbochargers, developing 464 horsepower and 445 pound-feet of torque. We think that a V8 can fit under the hood but for obvious reasons (the CTS-V), they didn’t do that. As far as transmissions go, you have two choices: a fast eight-speed auto and a six-speed manual. We’ll take the six-speed manual thank you very much.

The coupe version is slightly lighter than the sedan, and naturally the manual is slightly lighter than the auto. However, that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily faster. A manual coupe can hit 60 mph in 4.2 seconds from a dig, while an automatic CTS-V sedan will hit the same target in a blistering 3.7 seconds. It’s the same story with the quarter mile. A manual coupe does it in 12.6 seconds at 114.2 mph while a heavier automatic sedan will do it in 12.1 at 116.2 mph.

At the end of the day, does that really matter however? Well, if you want to brag and are into numbers then yes, otherwise no. We love manuals, and we can’t recommend an automatic when there’s a manual option. However, in the case of the ATS-V, it isn’t that simple. The manual is more involving and slightly more fun, but it can also be more frustrating. It’s not one of those buttery smooth, fluid manuals. It’s notchy and sometimes not that cooperative. It will at times annoy you but to be honest, an automatic will annoy us almost all of the time just because you can’t shift gears yourself. Despite the drawback, we’d go for the manual but you have to test drive both for yourself and only make up your mind after.

The handling is, like we said, superb. You get the feeling that this is a sports car first and a luxury second, while it’s the opposite with the Germans. Would we recommend it, even with the current offering of M3/M4, C63s and RS4s? Absolutely. The ride is supple and comfortable when you want it to, and stiff without body roll when you need it to be. The engine is a true powerhouse but it lacks in personality much like the M3’s engine does. That’s an issue the C63 does not have. This is a decision you’re going to have to make with your heart.

Don’t think over it too much. Choose which one makes you happy. That way you’ll be able to live with the drawbacks without regretting your purchase. Whatever you buy, you can’t go wrong. Just make sure to get the one which makes you flutter inside, otherwise you’ll regret it someday.

The handling is, like we said, superb. You get the feeling that this is a sports car first and a luxury second, while it’s the opposite with the Germans. Would we recommend it, even with the current offering of M3/M4, C63s and RS4s? Absolutely. The ride is supple and comfortable when you want it to, and stiff without body roll when you need it to be. The engine is a true powerhouse but it lacks in personality much like the M3’s engine does. That’s an issue the C63 does not have. This is a decision you’re going to have to make with your heart. Don’t think over it too much. Choose which one makes you happy. That way you’ll be able to live with the drawbacks without regretting your purchase. Whatever you buy, you can’t go wrong. Just make sure to get the one which makes you flutter inside, otherwise you’ll regret it someday.

The post American Exceptionalism in the Cadillac ATS-V appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

This post is supposed to be about flaunting my new gear and talking about our new sponsors for The Bet – Klim, Wolfman Lugguage, and SW-MOTECH. It’s not though. I was planning on taking you through all the stuffs they’ve sent me to review and give you guys my honest opinions on them. That’s not going to happen today. I was going to relay to you the first time I took the Sertao offroad and how it went. Instead I’m going to give you a tale of disaster, agony, and a pinch of fun and redemption at the end.

I could start this tale of woe at the beginning with me burning my fingers on the exhaust pipe as a kind of prelude to the shitty day ahead. Or we could pull a Memento and go backwards with me discovering as I finally arrived home that I’ve broken off one the GoPros I affixed to the bike to capture some sick shots for you guys. But both of those are weak, everyday pains that can’t elevate a story to the level of fiasco. Instead, let’s skip to the middle and the real meat of the story.

First, let’s set the scene: I’m taking a 4 day trip to Southern Utah to practice my offroad skills on the fat BMW before my final contest in August against Gary. To prep for that trip, lose this bike’s dirt virginity (don’t Google it), and as discussed to test out the new gear I just got I was going to to drive an hour north of Los Angeles to Hungry Valley – a “State Vehicular Recreational Area” or offroad park for short – and spend an hour or two on the dirt, grab those aforementioned sweet GoPro shots, then call it day. Easy really. My day clearly did not go that way (thanks foreshadowing!).

I installed my Wolfman tank bag after some trial and error, got all geared up in spiffy new Klim Badlands jacket and pants, and finally,yes, burnt my fingers on the exhaust attempting to adjust the gear shift lever for my new adventure boots. Not to fear though, we’re still having a good time. After mounting some GoPros on the SW-MOTECH crashbars it was time to hit the road and take the longest freeway journey I’ve ever done on a bike, then get my first taste of dirt on the Sertao. Now this was the first time I’ve been on the Beemer tangling with freeway traffic while also wearing legit head-to-toe protective gear and a helmet designed for speed. Normally I just jump on the freeway for a mile or so and wear jeans, a jacket of dubious construction, and my offroad helmet and goggles; it’s not a pleasant experience. But in the Badlands gear and a proper adventure touring helmet, I yelled to myself, “OKAY! I get it now!” That really happened – the onramp from the 10 to the 405 at about 12:20pm on Saturday if you want to check the tapes. But yes, I get how you could eat up states on an adventure bike and not want to gouge your eyes out with a soldering iron after 50 miles. I was so insulated, protected, and comfortable that it was a totally new experience and made the LA freeways livable. That said, I have no idea why people who just commute on surface streets get all suited up and prepare for battle with full adventure gear. It’s such a major piece of equipment and real to-do to put it all on, it truly is overkill if you’re popping out to buy milk.

An hour after my exclamation of joy, and a generally really pleasant ride all the way, I arrived in a wave of triumph and excitement at the small town of Gorman, California that housed the Hungry Valley park. Now let me detail exactly what happened in what order to you: I pulled up to the ranger shack at the entrance, turned off my bike, had pleasant conversation over the exchange of paper money for a day pass receipt, started my bike, travelled about a mile into the part to an open set up area with shade and tables, parked my bike, turned it off, and dismounted to get all my gear ready and carbo load before my dirt fun. GoPros ready, cured meats and Olive Oil Triscuits ingested, helmet and gloves back on and now it’s time to get going. I insert the key the normal (and very colorful and animated) startup sequence does not appear. Instead of my MPH needle swinging around and all my lights coming on, I just get a dot matrix message saying “IGN OFF” Okaaaaaaaay. I go for the starter button and get nothing. Turning the key off and on gives me nothing except now “IGN OFF” appears when the bike is totally off. My bike is, to all appearances, dead.

No problem though! Since we live in the future, all the worlds information and help is always at hand with our handy mobile telephone machines. But there’s no service in Hungry Valley. It’s a dead zone. Shit. But not so dead that one solitary text message came through while I was panicking, as if to provide a totally false sense of hope. Bastards. I kept attempting to look up what “IGN OFF” and sending texts and calls for help, but nothing was getting through. Just to spice things up and keep my game of Sherlock from coming to any conclusions, the dashboard’s behavior kept changing. Suddenly the needle would swing around but no lights would come up, or cryptic numbers would display with no rhyme or reason. Yet every time I tried the started button, everything went blank and dead. I was going to have to try and solve this like a person from the past – by talking to strangers…

In a giant dirt farm populated with 4Wheelers, dirt bikes, and quads I was lucky to have another adventure bike pull into the same rest area as me. I sought out my fellow overland motorcycling addict and asked for a jump while eschewing into the confusing chain of events as quickly as possible lest he think I’m soft in the head, or worse, a poser. His crew had a jump pack that we hooked up and the bike fired right up. We even killed the bike and started it again just to make sure I could ride. I thanked them profusely, then tucked tail and started back home without ever even touching dirt yet. I wasn’t going to take the chance of being stranded out there again with no service and a temperamental bike. I waived to the park ranger who had only checked me in 20min ago, and got back to the main road and the to the near civilization of a McDonald’s parking lot. I pulled over, bike still running, to make a few calls and texts to let my peeps know I was in trouble and there was an above 60% chance I was going to need a ride from the middle of nowhere at some point in the next 2 hours. Done stressing everyone out, I engaged first and rolled on the throttle to pull away and the bike died. Because of course it did.

While cursing up enough of a storm to make a sailor blush, I ran to the auto shop next door to Mc’s and asked them for a jump. I figured that, while it was very stupid to put a questionable machine onto the freeway and spend an hour going 80+, the onramp was literally 50ft away and the engine would/could power everything once it was held at revs. I’m not a smart man. Second jump complete and bike successfully restarted, this time I couldn’t even get out of a 10ft driveway before it died from the stress of being alive. It was clear this bike was going nowhere. My only hope now was my arch nemesis in The Bet and the whole reason I’m on this stupid German machine in the middle of desert nowhere – Gary.

Oh the humiliation. The groveling that had to take place. The promises of free meals and upscale whiskey were numerous to get him to consider either renting a trailer or buying a new battery then coming up an hour each way to rescue me, his competitor, a day before his birthday. Pleading completed and a deal struck, I hung up and started to disassemble my bike so I could tell him exactly what tools he would need to bring to replace the battery. As I was doing that, a tow truck arrived with a dead SUV at the mechanics shop I was stranded at. Once he was had offloaded the dead Lincoln Navigator and family, I approached his Hulk Hogan mustache and asked if he knew of anywhere in this one horse town to buy a motorcycle battery. Much to my surprise, he relayed that there was a moto shop at the next freeway exit just up the road, then suggested I look them up on my phone. It was at this exact moment that I felt like an idiot for not using my future machine first. I found the shop, called and confirmed they had a battery for me, and then navigated the distance to see that it was about an hour walk. Haha screw you Gary! I’m solving this one myself!

You know how tow truck drivers pack a .357 magnum and are some of the meanest humans in existence? Well when I walked back to Hulkamania to thank him and tell him I was hoofing it to the shop, he told me jump in his cab and said he’d give me a lift there! The Hulkster turned out to be an angel. After I stashed my helmet and heavy jacket near the dead bike, I got in the truck and we chatted about different bikes we’ve owned during the trip to the moto store where he dropped me off with  smile and wave. Now it was just a matter of buying a new battery and getting back to the bike. And, of course, hoping that the problem was the battery and not the alternator/stator…

Walking the mile back along a frontage road in 94 weather while wearing new (read: not broken in) moto boots and heavy adventure pants was not fun. I threw my thumb out for the first 4 cars to drive by, but the road was so deserted I gave up hope and figured I may as well get a tan while I’m hoofing it. I ditched my shirt – effectively giving up all hope for a ride since no sane person would give a shirtless dude a ride – stuffed it haphazardly in a pocket, and started the trek uphill. Of course it was an uphill climb for the first half of my walk, why wouldn’t it be? And of course upon finally getting to the “peak” of road did I notice that my shirt had fallen out of my pants and was somewhere back down the hill, so I got to do it all over again. Regardless, I sweated my ass off for an hour in those damn pants and stiff boots and arrived back at my stranded bike.

With nothing missing off the bike and my hidden clothes and helmet still there, I set to work on replacing the battery. This was pretty quick work but it did give me time to think through my next course of action. Do I A) be a smart human and immediately take the hour trip home so I don’t possibly get stranded out here again, or B) refuse to not at least do a touch of offroading to make all this misery worth it? B, of course. Why even ask? I put the bike together, fired her up, and pointed right back into the offroad park to reclaim a tablespoon of dignity for myself.

And you know what? I had a blast. I mean, I dropped the bike pretty much immediately so that cherry is popped as well, and this bike is a hundred pounds fatter than the bike I started The Bet with, but it was great to be back on the dirt and learning about what this bike is capable of. I was shocked at how capable the Sertao is, and can clearly see why the Beemer adventure bikes are the choice for conquering the world’s terrain. There were several instances of me rounding a blind corner to find myself in a very difficult or technical situation, and each time the GS ate it up with no problem. The bike is a too easy to get going fast, and too difficult to slow down in emergencies, but overall I was carving up single track mountain trails with ease within 5 minutes. Of course there were more butt-puckering moments and one more crash (there’s that lost GoPro right there), and the looming fear that I was running on battery power and my bike would die at any moment, but I had my fun and reminded myself why it was all worth it. After an hour the fear became overwhelming, along with my very tired body, and I scooted back to LA. I arrived back at FactoryTwoFour HQ without incident, and other than discovering the missing GoPro all was well.

My 4 day trip to Southern Utah is in less than a week, so I’ve only got a few days to figure out if it was indeed a bum battery or if I have a more major problem. I’m sure it will all work out for me, nothing ever goes wrong in my life…

Click here for Part 6 and the final preparation before the big race!

The post The Bet – Overland Motorcycling Pt 5 appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

In the immortal words of the great philosophers of our time – shit just got real. Half way into our year long overland motorcycling competition and the kid gloves have come off. Where my opponent Gary and I originally planned weekend excursions, practiced, and even wrenched on our machines together, now there is frosty silence and secrecy. I can’t say that thoughts of sabotage have crossed either of our minds, but I can’t not say it either.

What brought us to this point of fierce competition was the mutual decision that our current bikes, while great for learning off-road and overland motorcycling, were insufficient for both The Bet and our shared commitment to tackle long distance trips after our little wager is settled. What Gerber Baby and I had was an enduro and dirk bike respectively. What we needed was full-bore adventure bikes.

This lust and need brought us both to each buying a clean example of the BMW 650GS Sertao for the rest of The Bet. The GS series of BMW adventure bikes is world renowned for their ability to go anywhere and conquer all continents – and their ubiquity means we can still likely get them serviced in the middle of wild Africa or India when we tackle those trips (next year!). The 650 is the best possible blend of high horsepower and on-road speed with (relatively) lightweight and off-road maneuverability. And the Sertao edition is when BMW offered a more off-road centric version of the 650GS. Lastly, we decided to get matching bikes because 1) it’s super cute to be twinners, 2) repairs and emergencies become easier to handle, and 3) identical bikes level the playing field and return The Bet to a contest of skill above all else. In other words, I anticipate whining from Gary (at all times) and I’m going to refuse him any possible ammunition that I can.

So just like the beginning of this whole stupid adventure, Gerb and I picked up our new bikes within a few days of each other – and immediately started planning modifications and additions. And because we are now in The Realness of hard competition, we are no longer sharing research and ideas about panniers, lighting systems, and riding gear choices. There is frosty silence as we change spark plugs or shop online for gear. This silence will continue until the obnoxious screams of celebration from one of us takes over in mid-August.

Click here for Part 5 and our trial run for LA-to-Vegas that is a total disaster...

The post The Bet – Overland Motorcycling Pt 4 appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

M.R.K.T. bags use socially conscious vegan-friendly materials that feel expensive to the touch without the shocking price point. All of their bags are priced well below $200 and have thoughtful and functional designs to cater to your everyday needs. Both the Carter and Frank have two pockets that accommodate both 15-inch laptops and tablet. The textures feel great and durable while providing enough protective padding for your precious electronics. The simple and clean design leaves you with just enough pockets for your functional needs without overdoing it.

I’ve been personally using the Frank Briefcase for about two months now and it still looks new. What I like most about this bag aside from how fashionable it looks is the durability and comfort of using it on a day-to-day basis. The handle on the Frank is strong and soft enough that I never really needed to clip on the shoulder strap. Most importantly, I’ve spilled water on the bag and my laptop did not get wet. With just from one week of daily use, I can tell that there is a purpose to every bit of design. Nothing irks me most than a bag that looks great but is far from comfortable or practical. This is one bag I wish I had started using a long time ago. The coolest part about the Frank briefcase has got to be the removable laptop sleeve.

Be sure to check out their website for a wide variety of bags and colors to choose from. http://www.mrktstore.com/

The post M.R.K.T. Bags – Modern Bags For The Modern Gentlemen appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

First and foremost, let’s deal with the teutonic elephant in the room. The BMW 3 Series has ruled the small luxury sedan market almost from its creation. This is the champion, the king, the yard stick. Every new lux sedan is compared to it, and almost always found wanting. I’m telling you right now, the new Cadillac ATS meets it’s German rival head-on and matches it blow for blow. While I won’t declare a victor between them, for my money the Caddy has heaps more style and personality both inside and out.

And inside and out this car is a delight. Styling is always subjective, but if you don’t like how this car looks you’re wrong. That’s fact. From the cool light of the LEDs to the sharp creases of the body, the ATS oozes modernity. Inside you’re greeted with an interior that is equal parts luxury and anti-German – gray on gray on black is banished for blonde leather and walnut wood. There’s color here, and character; haven’t seen that in this segment for a while…

From style to substance, let’s move to how the metal drives. She’s a heavy machine at 3411 (although its the lightest in it’s class of porkers), but she moves when you want her to. Thank 272hp from the 2.0T that came in my test car. The turbo does have some mild lag though, just when I thought modern cars were doing away with that evil sensation. I can readily attest to this rear wheel drive(!) Caddy’s  ability, and even willingness, to carve a mountain road. Let’s just say I sufficiently bothered a 90’s Porsche 911 up the sinewy Angeles Crest Highway to make him pull over and let me buy. And he was trying. Imagine traveling back in time to the 90s, and telling a Porsche owner that in 25 years a Cadillac would be giving him a run for his money. Utterly unthinkable at the time of Fleetwoods and DeVilles.

Finally, there’s the luxury this car just exudes. Interior, exterior, anterior, posterior – doesn’t matter. The whole vehicle screams “I’ve got disposable income!” like only it’s rival’s have before. Chalk it up to the fact that I receive so many new cars to review, but I’d rather give credit where credit is due. At one point during my week with the ATS, I walked straight up to a 3 series and tried to open the door because I thought it was the Caddy. I just had to stop and smile for a moment at that one. So they’ve done it. They’ve created a machine that toe-to-toe competes for the BMW 3 Series’ crown. Congratulations General Motors, you’ve made a believer out of me. Now get me an ATS-V to test!

The post Rightful Heir to The Throne: Cadillac ATS appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

It’s been four hours, and I’ve got another eight to go. I’m headed north somewhere in the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains in Virginia, driving along the east coast from Atlanta, Georgia to Princeton, New Jersey in BMW’s latest mid-sized sedan. The cruise control is set at 100mph, and has been for the past half hour and the car is averaging just under 30mpg. Like nearly everything BMW has produced in the past five years, this car is an exercise in over-engineered precision. Even with the speeds firmly fixed among triplets on the speedometer, the car is almost completely silent and remarkably compliant. Imperfections in the road surface disappear under the chassis like interstate landmarks in the vehicles rear view mirror.

As the miles wear on, the heavily weighted steering continues to inspire confidence as I negotiate the gentle mountainous curves at triple digit speeds. In spite of the hilly terrain, the ample torque from the twin turbo charged straight six and the intelligently controlled six speed transmission keep the car calm and relaxed even when the landscape would force a downshift in lesser vehicles. Without the slightest hint of perspiration in my palms, the thick rimmed steering wheel is comfortable, and its spoke mounted controls make finding entertainment on my long journey fast and easy.

It occurs to me, as I near northern Virginia that I am in the heart of NASCAR country, and although my autobahn inspired German chariot lacks the thunderous V8 soundtrack, the 320ft-lbs from the sequentially operated turbos ensure passing in traffic is a mere breath on the accelerator away. It’s upon entering the state of New Jersey that the 5 Series really begins to come into its own. Even over the apparently cobblestone constructed roadway disaster and perpetual construction nightmare that is the New Jersey turnpike, the car remains comfortable and composed. Perhaps more importantly, despite the entire state of New Jersey not possessing a single intersection where a u-turn is legal, the BMW’s nav system makes short work of finding my destination, even when I’m sure the scope of my navigational incompetence could crash a supercomputer.

It’s not until I’m pulling the BMW curbside amongst a sea of yellow cabs, that I realized what a truly remarkable automobile this is. While coddled in a ocean of luxury, supple leather, and traveling at sustained speeds nearing or in excess of a hundred miles per hour, I had lost track of the time that had passed. In short the 535i, like so many of its predecessors, is timeless. This is an expression that also applies to both the design language and to the driving experience itself. As my passengers disembarked, to attend the wedding that was the cause for my journey, I felt nothing but sympathy for those individuals forced to arrive in the stained bench seats of Crown Victorias and Town Cars. They may have found the venue, but for my passengers and I, we had arrived.

The post The BMW 535i is the Executive’s Extended Stay Sedan appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

BMW has been on a tear lately, sales-wise. They hold the the crown as the number one luxury automaker in the world on the back of countless new-money yuppies and their shiny 3 Series’. At the same time though, the Bavarian giant has recently expanded its lineup to fill every conceivable niche in personality and buyer. That vaunted 3 Series line has now been split into 3 and 4 Series depending on how many doors you want. From X1 to the upcoming giant X7, there are suddenly more SUV choices than there are types of drivers. And worst of all, the upcoming 2 Series Active Tourer is going front wheel drive. And as this strange little car runs on the same underpinnings as the new 1 and 2 series, it is high likey (and BMW has already started indicating) that their entire small car and CUV lineup with go front wheel drive.

Having a massive 45 car lineup of idiosyncratic cars is confusing but forgivable. Less pardonable is throwing away 30 years of heritage to split the 3 Series line in twain with the 3 and 4 lines. But absolutely damning is the abandonment of what made them “The Ultimate Driving Machine” – a completely rear wheel drive lineup. the driving dynamics of a rear and front wheel drive car are fundamentally different. And while the average 1 and 2 Series driver may not consciously be able to tell their sled is pushed from the rear, one must wonder what effect the change to front-wheel drive will have on those same owners’ desire to step up into a 3 or 4 series.

I have faith that all the global auto industry will soon face a reckoning and be forced to shrink their ludicrous number of car models back down to a reasonable number. It is also possible but less likely that 5 years from now BMW will want its heritage back and discontinue the 4 and 2 Series name. But I fear once the front wheel drive demon is out of the box at BMW, it will be impossible to put back. The 2002 and tarted-up 1 Series could soon be just relics from history.

The post Has BMW Lost the Plot? appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

Walking up to the i3 is an exercise in identifying surfaces and following creases. This motor is a riot of angles and eye-points. While the BMW kidney grills and badge are present and accounted for, every other part of the design language is unique to the i range. This is great news for those considering an i3 as it means your eco-chariot will not be lost in the tidal sea of 2 and 3 series that populate the roads. we took a spin the sunburst orange and black example and found the colors to perfectly match the futuristic quality of the vehicle. Every i3 will be two-toned from the factory, with the black sections moving backward from the hood and fog lights forming the boundaries of what BMW calls the “functional load compartment.” And while it might sound like a crude reddit caption, they are trying to explain that all the action from both the drive-train and the pilot occur between those black bands.

You could swear the this whip would fit in your pocket. This car is seriously tiny. Visually it appears on par with the Smart car, but the actual dimensions tell a different story. As does the interior. Not only is it roomy inside, but the interior engineers in Leipzig have outdone themselves. If the exterior is all hard edges and creases, the interior consists solely of swoops and curves. It is easy to say that the interior of this vehicle is the most forward thinking and revolutionary part of the whole car. The i3 team clearly started with nothing but a blank sheet of paper and happily entertained ideas from half-crazed graduate students and struggling performance artists. This place is mental. And I mean that in the best possible way. The wood used as trim is unvarnished and coarse. the layout of every nook and cranny is fresh and exciting. the materials are, for the most part, luxurious and upgraded. BMW is clearly thinking beyond the driver here and is aiming on making a huge impression on any passengers’ ideas of what a BMW is.

But BMWs are known for their driving. So how does the i3 stack up to that heritage? The standard i3 is a pure electric car tipping the scales at 2.635 lbs, but we’re tootling around Sin City in the upgraded range-extender version. This option ads a 264 lb convention 650cc gas engine that can generate electricity for the on-board batteries but never physically powers the wheels. Because it’s all-electric, the i3 gets up and gos. 0-60 clocks in at 7 seconds, but being a city car the more interesting figure is its 0-30 time of just 3.5 seconds.

This pocket rocket was thoroughly designed to live its life in our urban environments and it shows. Quick, light steering, fluidic lane changes and sudden bursts of acceleration all make the i3 a downtown dream. The 100 mile maximum range of the power pack also chains it to city centers and developed areas, as does the 30 minute recharge time when equipped with the optional quick-charge package.The most unusual aspect of our drive around the Vegas strip was the rabies-level aggressiveness of the energy capture braking system. As soon as you let off the accelerator, the re-gen system begins to convert the movement of the wheels into harnessed energy and recharges the 450 lbs worth of Macbook batteries. This has the practical effect of forcefully applying the brakes every time you lift off the accelerator. At first blush this process was violent and led to a very see-saw riding experience. Quickly, however, I adapted and learned to stay on the accelerator longer (since there is no such thing as coasting in this car) and only using the actual brakes for aggressive stopping or to come to a complete halt. BMW might very well find it difficult to traverse that learning curve with potential customers during brief test drives. Then again, they can always sell customers on the “one set of brake pads to last a lifetime” angle.

Those Armani cologne sporting salesmen will have plenty of other selling points to use as well. BMW is betting billions on Deutschmarks that the i brand is their future, and the i3 is their volume model for the brand. They have crammed this electric buggy with as much new technology and fresh ideas as it can carry on it 101 inch wheelbase. They want every upwardly mobile yuppy going from their loft to their startup in an electric i3, and they’re off to a good start. Although it packs largely the same drive-train tech as a Chevy Volt, its had the Bavarian magic sprinkled all over it. The i3 is revolutionary for BMW and the upscale EV market, and you can fully expect this revolution to by heavily televised.

Take a stroll through our extensive gallery below for more i3 goodness:

The post The BMW i3 Wants To Change The World appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

Hearing Kayla laugh at the fact that I searched up my old car only inspired me to actually find one. I did not end up searching very long, because a deal jumped out at me immediately. “400 OBO BMW 318ic 5 speed m42 engine” I sat there thinking, “Oh, a nice engine for sale. Woohoo!” and moved on accordingly. We searched through several other high-priced BMWs ranging from Miami to North Carolina before finding ourselves back at this one in Jacksonville. I opened the post this time and noticed, near the bottom, three interesting catches:
1. “It needs a trailer. ”
2. “It’s not running, but I drove it into the garage. ”
3. “All parts included. ”

Having rebuilt an E30, E24, and an old E12, I was immediately ready to buy this car. The only real catch was that my wallet was empty (isn’t it always?). I looked over, laughing, and asked Kayla “Hey, you want to buy my PS4?” She looked back seriously and said a nice, stern “Yes.” The kind of “Yes.” that makes it clear that the idiotic words that just left my lips could not be taken back. Well, less gaming time meant more wrenching time. My deal with Kayla seemingly struck in blood, and my visions of Halo glory already fading I typed a to-the-point email stating:, “I can come up today. Tell me what’s wrong with the car, I’m ready to buy it.” We waited fifteen minutes to hear back from this guy, worried because it was an “email only” post. Guh. “He may never respond..” we both started thinking. BOOM. To our surprise, his response came: “what time?”

Kayla and I were amazed that he responded. I told him to send his phone number and sent him mine. We then waited another grueling forty-five minutes. A little let down, we set out to the adult candy store “Total Wine” and wandered the spirit filled isles in hopes to lift ours. My phone then vibrated and I jumped up to answer. It was the car.

“Yeah the oil pan busted. I bought it because it had a hard top. I sold the hard top and made my money back, so this convertible’s been sitting in my garage for two months. I don’t want to fix it!” Kayla and I immediately left the store and grabbed my trailer, her truck, my straps, and set course for Jacksonville. Five hours, a wayward trailer that fell off on the way, and one PlayStation exchange later, I had another baby in my driveway. I knew I would miss my dear and very regularly used gaming console; but alas, I was ready to start my next project, After all, the new oil pan was already in the trunk…

The post How I Traded a Playstation for a Car appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.