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BMW's Quandt family in hot water over Merkel campaign contributions

The mysterious and elusive Quandt family is in hot water again, nearly two years after its Nazi connections during World War II were exposed. The German family's patriarch, Herbert Quandt, nearly single-handedly saved BMW from being bought out by Daimler-Benz in 1959. Now, three living family members own nearly half of the German brand, and stand accused of buying votes with donations to the party of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, mere days ahead of a European Union vote that would cap vehicle emissions.
Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union accepted three donations, one from each shareholding member of the Quandt family.
Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union accepted three donations, one from each shareholding member of the Quandt family, totaling 690,000 euros ($935,000), on October 9. The CDU, for what it's worth, claim the donations weren't related to any political decisions and that the family have been donors for years. A Quandt family spokesperson, meanwhile, said that the family had been waiting for Germany's September 22 elections to pass before making a large contribution to the CDU.

BMW confirms M4 DTM for next season

Fans of BMW performance had two events to keep an eye on this weekend: the reveal of the M4 Concept at Pebble Beach, and the efforts of the Bavarian automaker's DTM teams at the Nurburgring. What ties them together, however, is what BMW has in store for next year.
The German carmaker has confirmed that it's already working on a new M4 DTM to campaign in the highly-competitive touring car series starting next season. It didn't reveal any details, but we can expect the M4 to make the same jump to competition spec as the M3 did before it. And with some success, we might add: successive versions of the M3 have won 48 DTM races over the years, starting with the checkered flag which Harald Grohs claimed at Hockenheim in 1987 through to the same race which Augusto Farfus won earlier this year. After taking home the title for BMW in its first year back in DTM last season, Bruno Spengler also won at the Red Bull Ring in Austria two months ago, but the Bimmer teams seem to be having a bit of trouble defending its title against fresh assaults from Audi and Mercedes.
BMW undoubtedly hopes the new M4 DTM will help it turn another new leaf, and we're looking forward to seeing how it all shapes up. Read more in the press release below.

Is Audi getting complacent and suffering from brain drain?

The argument is made in a Reuters article: Audi is falling behind other luxury brands, such as Mercedes-Benz and BMW, due to a lack of research-and-development spending and "brain drain," or the migration of top executives and R&D chiefs to other parts of the Volkswagen Group. Reuters notes that Audi's current R&D chief is the third in 16 months.
Audi, which contributed to 40 percent of VW Group's $11.6 billion in profit the first nine months of the year, is delivering cars at a record pace: 1.31 million were delivered from January to October 2013 versus BMW's 1.35 million. Yet Audi, Reuters reports, doesn't have a halo car akin to BMW's new electrified i3 and i8 or an answer to Mercedes' plug-in-hybrid S-Class, and the R&D spending at Audi is less than BMW and Mercedes by a fair margin. It's noted in the article, however, that Audi benefits from other R&D spending within VW Group.
Reuters mentions that BMW "trumpets its new 'i' series" and the new Mercedes CLA and GLA ranges are winning "rave reviews" as part of its argument that Audi's recent lack of technological innovation could hurt future sales. Those cars do pack tons of new technology, some of which are firsts for mainstream production cars. But last time we checked, the i3 could be causing BMW's stock to slide, the CLA isn't receiving the rave reviews that Reuters would have you believe and the GLA hasn't been reviewed yet.