BMW makes a pretty smooth longboard. The curved deck provides a "strapped in" sensation of security.

It's a perfect icon of Germany. From the land of Oktoberfest, bier steins and strudel comes a new skateboard—the BMW Street Carver—that brings the joyous carving sensation of snowboarding and surfing to pavement. Bomb down concrete slopes on its more stable design. Slalom at speed while feeling more relaxed with subtle shifts of your weight. Performance boarding now comes to das ganze volk. From the land of precision engineering and rigid tolerances, and home to names like, Mercedes-Benz and Karl Zeiss, comes a skateboard that touts a never-before-seen truck system and tremendous attention to finish detail. Flip the board over and suddenly you've got a crowd around you. It's like driving one of the PT Cruisers when they were first introduced.

Maybe it's the cute baby blue, teal and white finish. Maybe it's the unusual aluminum axles and pendulum supports. We think it's what the label on the underside says. Everyone who crowds around has the same comment: "Hey! That's a BMW? Geeetouddahere..."

The BMW Street Carver has quietly started trickling its way into BMW automobile dealerships across the nation. Our test board came sealed in a cardboard box fresh from labs in the fatherland along with a (gasp!) owner's textbook/dictionary/lexicon/encyclopedia/shop manual, and a warning from the woman heading BMW's communications department who loaned it out: Go easy, it needs to be returned in one piece. As it turned out, she didn't give the board enough credit.

In keeping with the fatherland's automotive philosophy, the Street Carver is as solid as a bank safe. The board is heavier than your ordinary skateboard. The board's cast-aluminum truck assemblies (axles) are quite large and the pendulum supports connected to the trucks also add weight. The extra poundage actually works to the board's advantage. The undercarriage mated to the wood-and-fiberglass-inlay deck absorbs road shock with a satisfying deep thud sound and the absence of vibration.

There's no lip to kick where the board protrudes beyond the trucks at either end. Monster-size 110mm wheels mounted on the cast trucks are almost three times the size of wheels on most boards. Make no mistake, this board isn't intended to be someone's freestyle ride. The Street Carver is just that—a longboard designed just for freecarving. And, according to the riding guidelines on page 11 of the owner's manual, it is not intended for use on public roads. Call it the private/closed-area carver.

We found just such a private/closed area to carve. The first thing we noticed is that the board is very stable, showing no tendency, as do some other boards, to become squirrelly at speed. Because of the pivoting nature of conventional board trucks, and their increased sensitivity at velocity, minor inputs from your weight will make the board shimmy left and right very fast. That's usually the "eat-it" point for many.

The Bimmer is much more confidence-inspiring, partially because the truck design has support arms that work against each other. Each truck has two arms and two pendulum supports that reach to opposite sides of the board. A traditional skateboard truck has two center-mounted arms connecting the wheels to the deck. Your weight shifts to one side of the conventional truck arm, and rubber gaskets provide the resistance force to prevent the board from leaning over too far. The BMW board design steers in the direction of body lean, but the weight on the opposite side of the board pulls the wheels (although with much less force) in the opposite direction. The overall result is a more predictable, controlled turn. Shifting your weight gives a very precise sensation of changing direction. The balance made possible by the support arms creates a cleaner progressive steering feel—the sensation of accuracy.

By the way, if you need to replace those pendulum support arms, they're right off the original BMW 5 Series running gear. You'll know when it's time to replace the hard rubber covers on your wheels. There's a red wear indicator that starts to show when the wheels are finished.

How much would you pay for a BMW that comes with no engine? No brakes? No air conditioning? The fit and finish is perfect, right down to the small emblems on the truck arms. Creature comforts include a rubberized grip pad for the deck surface (which definitely beats the black sandpaper norm) and a lexicon of skater lingo and technique terms (owner's manual, page 23) so you won't be ostracized at the local skate park as a geek. Our favorite definition is, "Stoked—the feeling of doing something well." You can get stoked at your local BMW dealer for $495.00 or visit www.bmwonline.com.