BMW Canada is offering two driving events that compare their 3-series against the competition. On May 27-30 and June 5-7 they will be heading to Downsview park and allow people two hours to test drive their car against the Audi A4, Lexus IS and Mercedes C-class. Granted, many of the competition cars will not be heavily optioned, and usually are run with very crappy tires, but it should prove to be a fun day. To signup go to their website.

It was quite a shame that Audi chose to delay launch one of the best configurations of the new A4. However, they just announced that the New A4 can be configured with the 2.0T, with manual transmission, and quattro all-wheel drive. Also newly available is a front-wheel drive version with a continuously variable transmission – called Multitronic for Audi.