Functional or just going along with the crowd?



Full pics can be found at Motoringfile

 

Interesting......?

Looks like it just uses up/covers the rear seat brackets, not sure how functional.

But I do want to see the new aluminum rear control arms!

 

from the looks of it looks 100% bling... although i could be wrong... if it is welded to the chassis itself, and it is of a strong material like titanium.. then it'd be great!

 

Looks like bling to me as well. By looking at the picture, I do not see any way for it to have any real task then for looks.

Garrett

 

Take another look .The bar mounts a lot further forward than the rear seat brackets. It appears to be hitting about in the middle of the back window. Now wether or not it does anything I have no idea.

John

 

That is why I stated before that it looks like it has no task at all and just for looks. There could be no way for it to do anything in the location that it is in.

Garrett

 

Looks like a harness bar to me.

its in the right place for it.

 

Would it not be better to have the harness bolted to the floor then on a bar that could snap! With some force, that thing looks like it might snap.

Garrett

 

harness in real race cars are mounted to a bar attached to the roll cage, not the floor.

floor mounts are for when you dont have a bar or a cage.

 

I can see a roll cage having much much more strength. but this bar does not look like it would be sturdy enough. Then again not knowing how it is bolted or mounted on makes it harder to justify my statement.

Garrett

 

Looks like it's located where the rear speakers would be ...



Protection for the back of the front seats

 

well, there is nothing really structurla there, its all just sheetmetal, but there hast to be a purpose for it.

 

Yes there is a purpose for everything! But we may never know what this purpose may be! Bling bling

Garrett

 

Harness bar gets my vote ...once you ditch the crappy USA sport cloth seats

 

IMHO, that's too low for a proper harness bar... I would think the belts coming over would tend to triangulate too much, a la the Schroth harnesses (which are fine for autocrossing, but you wouldn't catch me using mine on the track).

IMHO, it should be quite a bit higher if it's a harness bar...

 

I agree . I went out and looked and my harness bar is at least 12 inches higher. I have no clue what this thing is for LOL .

Randy
M7 Tuning

 

it looks about the place that this harness bar is at....

 

You would think they could have saved an extra 1lbs by removing the rear seat grab handles that obviously will not be needed without a rear seat.

 

That's for your dog's leash

 

I doubt it's a harness bar as BMW is not going to install a harness/de-capitation bar in a street legal car without putting a big reserve on their balance sheet for lawsuits. The attorneys would have a field day with this.

Probably more of a poser rear strut bar and/a barrier so someone doesn't try to sit where the rear sets used to be.

As for strut bars, BMW did put front strut bars on the e36 M3 LTW (trunk kit) and the e46 M3. So it is not out of the realm of possibility... but I still think it is a no seat bar.

Just my $0.02.

Vince

 

But then they couldn't charge you for them!