[Jason]

BMW’s ‘Ultimate Driving Experience’ is back for 2025 with more models and exciting new activities.

• The annual performance driving tour returns for its 12th year, offering professional driving instruction in BMW’s growing lineup of vehicles.
• 2025 program to feature 57 total days of driving activities in 18 major cities across the nation.
• The all-new 393-horsepower X3 M50 will make its debut on this year’s autocross course alongside the 100% electric BMW i4 and BMW i5.

Woodcliff Lake, NJ – April 10, 2025… BMW kicks off its 2025 Ultimate Driving Experience tour this week, once again hosting fans of the Ultimate Driving Machine for an engaging program led by BMW professional driving instructors and product experts. Drivers in 18 cities throughout the U.S. will have the opportunity to sharpen their skills behind the wheel of BMW’s latest vehicles as they dive into BMW performance, safety, and comfort innovations.

Guests are invited to join BMW in the following activities at this year’s Ultimate Driving Experience:

Autocross: BMW’s newest performance Sports Activity Vehicle, the BMW X3 M50, joins the all-electric BMW i4 xDrive40 Gran Coupe and BMW i5 xDrive40 Sedan on the autocross course during this year’s Ultimate Driving Experience. With expert coaching from BMW professional driving instructors, guests navigate a coned course one car at a time, competing against the clock for the fastest lap. (Age: 18+)

Street Tours: Guests are encouraged to explore the full range of BMW’s latest models through a guided test-drive on local roads, accompanied by a BMW professional driving instructor. Street Tours gives consumers the opportunity to experience multiple vehicles in one session, allowing them to compare the legendary performance and style of each BMW model out on the road. (Age: 25+)

The Sprint: A new dynamic closed course exercise emphasizing car control and driver skill over high-speed driving. Sprint sessions offer maximum flexibility and a wide variety of BMW models across all segments. (Age: 18+)

Interactive Displays: BMW product experts will be ready to help visitors explore the Ultimate Driving Machine from every angle. The interactive vehicle display area is all about getting hands-on with cutting-edge technology while experiencing exterior and interior design details up close.

The full BMW Ultimate Driving Experience schedule, as well as more program information, can be found on the official BMW UDE website. The first stop will take place in New Jersey from April 10 – 13 at MetLife Stadium. Further tour stops this year include Atlanta, Charlotte, Denver, Philadelphia, San Diego, Dallas, and many more.

[chicagofan00]

Wonder if they’ll be adding Arizona to the list this year…

[ClearMinded]

You call driving an i4 and an i5 "ultimate driving experience"? I thought that belongs to M cars because those should be peak BMW.

[tturedraider]

Probably won’t go again after going for the last last eleven years and then to some kind of BMW driving event (Susan Komen For the Cure Drive) for the previous fifteen years. They’ve watered down the autocross so much it’s not really fun anymore. They eliminated the timed drive so there’s no little competition within your group. And the “Street Tour” is a poor excuse and replacement of the “Street Drive” where you got to take the cars out by yourself on their predetermined route. Other than metro New York there are only about seven other cities up on the website right now.

[tturedraider]

Originally Posted by ClearMinded

You call driving an i4 and an i5 "ultimate driving experience"? I thought that belongs to M cars because those should be peak BMW.

??? I see you’re in Europe, so you’re obviously not familiar with what the UDEs have been about in the U.S., but they have always been about the full range of mostly regular BMW models and never about M cars. They have frequently included a paid M car driving instruction course, but not 100% of the time. This is a totally free event BMWNA runs that is completely open to the public.

[John Casey]

Only 10 locations posted on their webpage - and one of those has already occurred.

Earlier notice to the nice Bimmerpost community and more folks in NJ could have participated this weekend and tested out the new X3...
https://g45.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh....php?t=2172429

[jmg]

Originally Posted by tturedraider

Probably won’t go again after going for the last last eleven years and then to some kind of BMW driving event (Susan Komen For the Cure Drive) for the previous fifteen years. They’ve watered down the autocross so much it’s not really fun anymore. They eliminated the timed drive so there’s no little competition within your group. And the “Street Tour” is a poor excuse and replacement of the “Street Drive” where you got to take the cars out by yourself on their predetermined route. Other than metro New York there are only about seven other cities up on the website right now.

I hope they bring back the timed autocross someday. I always looked forward to competing in cars I normally wouldn’t autocross like the i4 and X2 they had in the past. That being said, the X3 should be interesting!

[ClearMinded]

Originally Posted by tturedraider

??? I see you’re in Europe, so you’re obviously not familiar with what the UDEs have been about in the U.S., but they have always been about the full range of mostly regular BMW models and never about M cars. They have frequently included a paid M car driving instruction course, but not 100% of the time. This is a totally free event BMWNA runs that is completely open to the public.

Why do you assume that I'm not familiar with the UDEs in North America? I've been following it, but I wasn't really interested due to the lineup what BMW usually brings to that event.
BMW brought the G80 and the 850i in 2022 to the event and the 540i in 2024. These were the only times when they got my attention. Any other event was electrified, yet they have been calling those "the ultimate driving experiences", yet i series and e cars have nothing to do with the event's name. This is my point what I'm trying to say.

[zx10guy]

I'm signed up for the DC running. I started looking for the updated UDE website shortly after the start of the year. I don't remember when, but I think the site got updated last month and you were able to put in to be notified when the schedule for the city you're interested came out. I got notification about DC about two weeks ago.

[moriluvatar]

I love having a variety of events to mix it up with other high-performance, driver education, hopping in different cars and being able to do things back to back gives you a completely different experience.

That is to say: There’s a bit of memory editing when there’s a long time between driving cars, so I think being able to hop in and out of various models is super valuable… at least to me.

[afadeev]

Originally Posted by ClearMinded

You call driving an i4 and an i5 "ultimate driving experience"?

Call it "ultimate Selling experience".

I do find it curious that street test drives will now be "accompanied by a BMW professional driving instructor". In the past the wait for test drive was the longest. Now it will be unusable.

Originally Posted by tturedraider

Probably won’t go again after going for the last last eleven years and then to some kind of BMW driving event

Same here.
All of the above considerations + I really don't want to drive another overweight truck (X3), and or i4/5 have been out for years. BTDT.

Did it last year, was massively underwhelmed.
Not worth it anymore for me.

a

[jakek66]

No Midwest at all. That’s a shame, I know St Louis only gets it once in a while but I will travel to Chicago and do them too. KC I don’t think has had one in forever.

[tturedraider]

Originally Posted by ClearMinded

Why do you assume that I'm not familiar with the UDEs in North America? I've been following it, but I wasn't really interested due to the lineup what BMW usually brings to that event.
BMW brought the G80 and the 850i in 2022 to the event and the 540i in 2024. These were the only times when they got my attention. Any other event was electrified, yet they have been calling those "the ultimate driving experiences", yet i series and e cars have nothing to do with the event's name. This is my point what I'm trying to say.

Sure. Whatever floats your boat. Your post just proves you are not familiar with the events regardless of whether or not you happened to notice a couple of them. BMWNA has been running MARKETING events like this for more than twenty five years. They used to do them to benefit the Susan Komen for the Cure breast cancer research organization. At that time they were solely street drives. Then they started doing little autocross events and many times they offered mini, paid M School driver training events with professional driving instructors in conjunction with the free event. But they have never had an event where M cars were part of the fleet available to the general public to drive. BMW’s tagline in North America is The Ultimate Driving Machine. It’s not terribly difficult to figure out why they call these events Ultimate Driving Events. They give the non-BMW general public the opportunity to try out The Ultimate Driving Machine. Which used to be a pretty accurate description of what BMWs were. Less so today. Today BMW is more focused on their European tagline. Sheer Driving Pleasure, from their point of view.

[tturedraider]

Originally Posted by jakek66

No Midwest at all. That’s a shame, I know St Louis only gets it once in a while but I will travel to Chicago and do them too. KC I don’t think has had one in forever.

That might not be the case. I noticed there are cities mentioned in the press release that are not yet posted on the website, so it could still come to the midwest. If I recall correctly in the 13+ years I’ve lived in Chicago they have only skipped Chicagoland once.

[pikkagtr]

Originally Posted by tturedraider

Sure. Whatever floats your boat. Your post just proves you are not familiar with the events regardless of whether or not you happened to notice a couple of them. BMWNA has been running MARKETING events like this for more than twenty five years. They used to do them to benefit the Susan Komen for the Cure breast cancer research organization. At that time they were solely street drives. Then they started doing little autocross events and many times they offered mini, paid M School driver training events with professional driving instructors in conjunction with the free event. But they have never had an event where M cars were part of the fleet available to the general public to drive. BMW’s tagline in North America is The Ultimate Driving Machine. It’s not terribly difficult to figure out why they call these events Ultimate Driving Events. They give the non-BMW general public the opportunity to try out The Ultimate Driving Machine. Which used to be a pretty accurate description of what BMWs were. Less so today. Today BMW is more focused on their European tagline. Sheer Driving Pleasure, from their point of view.

Bmw M Town driving event included M cars
There was a X3M at the SF Cow Palace UDE available for street drives
It is rare but they are available

[tturedraider]

Originally Posted by pikkagtr

Bmw M Town driving event included M cars
There was a X3M at the SF Cow Palace UDE available for street drives
It is rare but they are available

Well, it included an ///M3. Personally I’d call the other two options pretend M cars. But, I must admit I had forgotten about it. I just went back and reviewed a thread about it here in Chicagoland and it seems it was mostly a bust and almost impossible to drive the ///M3. It was a dealership event that was only a street drive and Knauz BMW hosted it here and I was reminded that I decided at the last minute not to make the drive from the city out to the suburbs and the post I made in the thread was my relief that I hadn’t missed anything.

You’re right about the X3M. I have to also admit I had forgotten about that. I think I drove it. If I recall correctly it was at the UDE on the south side of Chicago at Guaranteed Rate Field or whatever it is they’re calling it. Anyway, it is pretty much a beast, but I think it didn’t make a big impression on me because I don’t really consider the SUVs real ///M cars. I mean they are definitely tarted up by the ///M Division, but at their core they’re still trucks.

[hyde]

Originally Posted by tturedraider

Probably won’t go again after going for the last last eleven years and then to some kind of BMW driving event (Susan Komen For the Cure Drive) for the previous fifteen years. They’ve watered down the autocross so much it’s not really fun anymore. They eliminated the timed drive so there’s no little competition within your group. And the “Street Tour” is a poor excuse and replacement of the “Street Drive” where you got to take the cars out by yourself on their predetermined route. Other than metro New York there are only about seven other cities up on the website right now.

Whats the difference between street tour and street drive, you mean they don't let you take them for a drive anymore? I really enjoyed a slow relaxed ride on 7 series last time.. It was many years ago when we also had times competition which was a lot of fun too.
I don't really care for demonstrations like how high x5 can climb or how good it's controlled descent is. That's the year they also were promoting 5 series diesels.. I wonder if we will ever see diesels again now that they are pushing electrics.

[jakek66]

Originally Posted by hyde

Whats the difference between street tour and street drive, you mean they don't let you take them for a drive anymore? I really enjoyed a slow relaxed ride on 7 series last time.. It was many years ago when we also had times competition which was a lot of fun too.
I don't really care for demonstrations like how high x5 can climb or how good it's controlled descent is. That's the year they also were promoting 5 series diesels.. I wonder if we will ever see diesels again now that they are pushing electrics.

They’ll never do diesels again. That’s your answer.

[hyde]

Originally Posted by jakek66

They’ll never do diesels again. That’s your answer.

I don't see how that answers my question about street drive vs tour.

[tturedraider]

Originally Posted by hyde

Whats the difference between street tour and street drive, you mean they don't let you take them for a drive anymore? I really enjoyed a slow relaxed ride on 7 series last time.. It was many years ago when we also had times competition which was a lot of fun too.
I don't really care for demonstrations like how high x5 can climb or how good it's controlled descent is. That's the year they also were promoting 5 series diesels.. I wonder if we will ever see diesels again now that they are pushing electrics.

Well, the fact that you enjoyed a slow, relaxed ride in a 7 Series tells me a little something about how you and I view driving differently. The street drive provided you with a predesignated route to drive and you got in the car by yourself and made the drive and you were the one who controlled the pace and the character of the driving experience you wanted for yourself. The tour is a group of about five cars in a line following along behind a BMW driver and you drive at the painfully slow pace they drive. You make stops along the way and change cars with the other drivers. It’s utterly boring and a waste of time. It’s not even as good as a test drive at a dealership with a CA. The beauty of the individual street drive was that you got to experience what actually driving the car was like with no one there to influence your experience.

Originally Posted by jakek66

They’ll never do diesels again. That’s your answer.

Originally Posted by hyde

I don't see how that answers my question about street drive vs tour.

Did you forget about the question you ended your post with. That’s the question he answered.

[Zer00]

Wow they've dropped a lot of cities. No events in CA!!

Hopefully they will have some m track days around me.

[tturedraider]

Originally Posted by Zer00

Wow they've dropped a lot of cities. No events in CA!!

Hopefully they will have some m track days around me.

Originally Posted by tturedraider

That might not be the case. I noticed there are cities mentioned in the press release that are not yet posted on the website, so it could still come to the midwest. If I recall correctly in the 13+ years I’ve lived in Chicago they have only skipped Chicagoland once.

.