[BruceM]

1. Payments--very hard to answer this without knowing your financial situation. Money is cheap now, so your rate is going to be good regardless, but what kind of chunk $800/month takes out of your budget only you know. If it is a stretch, perhaps two M cars might be enough in the short term.

2. Another advantage in waiting is that the future may well offer more flexibility with respect to the "options" you want than the present does. Because now, for example, in the US you can get any color you want outside, so long as it's LBB, MG, BSM or AW. Period. And any color/material you want inside, so long as it's black Dakota leather with blue contrast stitching. This car is very, very limited on options here right now.

3. ED would be cool, all else being equal. But if that would be a net financial burden for you, with travel and related costs figured in, then again that's something between you and your bank accounts/conscience.

4. Very much doubt this car will appreciate substantially any time in the next several years, if BMW goes through with its apparent plans to make a version of it for five more years (yet another reason not to jump too soon to get the car). This will not be the 1M, and even that car has not appreciated wildly, but simply stayed closer than normal to holding its original value.

Separately, your dealer is almost certainly talking out of his ass, sad to say, regarding options, total volume the first year to the US, etc. I've talked to several dealers and none of them have repeated anything like what he is saying, and it is also quite inconsistent with other reports on this Board. In my experience, dealers are not a real good source of information on this kind of thing, and they are even worse about the car itself. It's a rare sales associate who actually knows as much as any prospective buyer could learn about a car in 30 minutes on the Net. I am repeatedly surprised at how clueless these people are about the details of the cars they sell. I've heard tales of real enthusiasts as sales associates, but the only real enthusiasm I sense in the ones I've consulted is for selling me a car, as expensive as possible, and as quickly as they can. And that is just the ones who don't knowingly feed false or speculative information to create a sense of urgency or value to encourage snap decisions and purchases.