The Ultimate Driver
The i3 Touring
- The Home Gate Opens First
- Elvie’s, then Cyril Neville
- Gear Up & Unleash, 5 September
- Omega Speedmaster 38
- X5, X3, X7
- Oil, the plan, brakes
September in Jackson doesn’t cool off so much as it stops apologizing. The light goes long, the patios stop being a dare, and the calendar fills up with people who actually play instruments. Here’s what’s news.
On the Road
i3 Touring prototype · Nürburgring
The i3 Touring
There’s a photographer named Baldauf who stands at the Nürburgring in the cold and waits for BMW to make a mistake in public. In August he caught one worth caring about: an i3 Touring — the long-roof version of the new Neue Klasse i3 — running laps in a thin coat of camouflage. Silver. Estate body. A wagon that plugs in.
The tester wearing the camo is the dual-motor 50 xDrive: 463 horsepower, a 108.7 kWh pack, something north of 500 miles on the European cycle, and DC charging quick enough that a coffee is a real strategy again. BMW already started building the sedan in Munich. The wagon is the driver’s argument against the assumption that the only honest answer anymore is another tall SUV.
Two things this is not. It is not a hybrid, and it is not confirmed for anybody’s driveway on this side of the Atlantic. A prototype at a German track proves engineers are working, nothing else — not a Mississippi delivery date, not a price, not a promise. So we watch.
Photos: Carscoops / Baldauf · The scoop
On Saturday
The Home Gate Opens First
Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium · Jackson
On Saturday
The Home Gate Opens First
The only kick that lands inside the city limits this week is Jackson State’s. Six o’clock, Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium, Edward Waters in town for the HOPE Labor Day Classic on Friends & Family Weekend. The Tigers come in 1–0 — a 26–24 comeback over Tennessee State up in Nashville a week ago, the John Merritt Classic decided late. First real home gate of the season, and it opens before anyone else’s.
The SEC weekend splits, and this metro feels both halves. Mississippi State opens 0–0 at home — Davis Wade, 6:30 Saturday, UL Monroe on ESPNU, a clean first look under the Starkville lights. Ole Miss doesn’t play Saturday at all. The Rebels, ninth in the AP, drew a Sunday night in Nashville: No. 24 Louisville, 6:30 at Nissan Stadium on ABC, the Music City Kickoff. Not Oxford, not a Saturday — a ranked team spending the holiday weekend on neutral turf. Half the driveways in town fly one flag or the other, and this week they watch on different days.
Next Saturday tightens: State goes to Minnesota at 2:30 on CBS, and Ole Miss hosts Charlotte in Oxford at 6:45 on ESPN2 — the road to LSU on the 19th starts there.
Photo: Joe Furr / Wikimedia Commons (public domain). Reporting: Jackson State Athletics, JSU recap, Hail State, Ole Miss Athletics, ESPN, 4 September 2026.
On the Table
Elvie’s · 809 Manship St. · Belhaven
Elvie’s
Elvie’s sits in a small room in Belhaven on Manship Street, named for the chef’s grandmother, May Elvaretta Good, and it has spent the years since 2020 quietly being one of the best reasons to stay in Jackson for dinner. Hunter Evans — a James Beard Best Chef South finalist — and Cody McCain cook Mississippi through a French lens without ever pretending the Gulf is somewhere fancier than it is. Bib Gourmand last year. On the New York Times list. None of that is why you go.
You go because September is finally when the patio makes sense, and because the plate in front of you came off a farm and out of the Gulf. As of the live night menu: oysters to start, chicken liver pâté with sourdough and pickles, steak frites finished with maître d’ butter and duck-fat fries. The menu moves with the farms, so check the night page the week you go.
It’s a two-person room. Leave the laptop in the car. Closed Sunday and Monday. Book it before a Duling Hall night, or instead of defaulting to another steakhouse.
On the Town
Cyril Neville · Duling Hall · 24 September
Cyril Neville Plays The Dead
Thursday, 24 September, Duling Hall. Cyril Neville is the youngest Neville brother, which at this point means a Grammy Lifetime Achievement, the Meters, the Neville Brothers, and roughly half a century of New Orleans low end. He is bringing all of that to a 500-seat room in Fondren to play the Grateful Dead. That is not a touring jukebox musical rolling through on a bus. That is a serious musician taking apart songs he loves in a room small enough to hear him think.
Doors 6:30, show 7:30, all ages. Advance $40, day-of $45 plus fees. Under-21 is $5 at the door. Eat at Elvie’s first, or oysters at Saltine if you’re already on Duling.
Gear Up & Unleash · 5 September · 1685 High St.
Gear Up & Unleash
Saturday, 5 September, on this lot. Third year. Herrin-Gear’s car show for Children’s Hospital of Mississippi — classics, trucks, jeeps, customs, motorcycles. Registration at 8 a.m. Pre-register $25, $30 at the gate. DJ, food trucks, kids zone, hospitality tent.
- Sat 5, 8 a.m. Gear Up & Unleash, 1685 High. For Children’s Hospital of Mississippi. Pre-register $25, gate $30. Event page
- Sat 5 The Rumble, Duling Hall. Big Chief Joseph Boudreaux Jr. and six more Grammy-nominated New Orleans players. Doors 7, show 8. Advance $25. Tickets
- Sat 5, morning Free First Saturday, Mississippi Museum of Art, 11 a.m. Walk Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985 — last stop of the National Gallery tour. The show
- Tue 8–Sun 20 Mrs. Christie at New Stage Theatre. Agatha Christie vanishes for eleven days in 1926; a superfan a century later tries to solve it. Box office 601-948-3533. New Stage
- Thu 10 Soul City Swingers, Levitt series, Smith Park, 5–8 p.m. Free, downtown, on the lawn. Visit Jackson
- Sat 26 Mississippi Book Festival, State Capitol grounds, 9–5. Free. This year’s names include George Saunders, Kate McKinnon, Simon Winchester, and Deesha Philyaw. Festival
- Wed 30 Jersey Boys, Thalia Mara Hall, 7:30. Broadway in Jackson, one night. Tickets
On the Wrist
Speedmaster 38 · black no-date
Speedmaster 38
Omega redrew the Speedmaster 38 this year and, for once, the news is what they took away. The oval subdials are gone. What’s left, in the black no-date (ref. 324.30.38.50.01.002), is the Moonwatch face on a smaller, more honest case — $6,500, and the one to want out of the seven variants. Ignore the diamond bezels.
It disappears on your wrist until somebody asks about it. Not a smartwatch. Not a $75,000 bracelet that lives in a safe. Still 14.75 mm thick, which means it wears like a tool. The good version of a thing is the one you actually use.
On the Lot
X5 · BMW of Jackson
The X5
MY26 X5 xDrive40i. Enough room for the whole plan, enough engine for the interstate.
Finance
0.9% APR
60 mo · $1,000 APR credit
Lease
$869/mo
39 mo · $809 w/ loyalty
Expires September 30, 2026. With approved credit. Some exclusions apply. See dealer for details. Delivery by September 30 required.
X3 · BMW of Jackson
The X3
MY26 X3 30 xDrive. The one that does everything and asks for a normal parking spot.
Finance
0.9% APR
60 mo · 30 xDrive
Lease
$569/mo
39 mo · $539 w/ loyalty
Expires September 30, 2026. With approved credit. Some exclusions apply. See dealer for details. Delivery by September 30 required.
X7 · BMW of Jackson
The X7
MY27 X7 xDrive40i. Three rows. Short-term lease if you want flexibility into next year.
Finance
0.9% APR
60 mo
Lease
$1,249/mo
15 mo · or $1,049 / 39 mo
Expires September 30, 2026. With approved credit. Some exclusions apply. See dealer for details. Delivery by September 30 required.
On the Workbench
Oil, the plan, brakes
The waiting room has the Isetta Bar and wifi. The bays have factory-trained techs.
BMW Value Service oil change is $119.99 — up to six quarts of premium synthetic, factory filter, parts and labor, for Value Service Program models. Expires 9/28.
If you keep cars past the warranty window — and around here, people do — the three-year oil change plan is $249 plus tax and disposal. Two oil changes a contract year, BMW-trained techs, original parts. Expires 9/28.
Value Service brakes. Pads, and the people who already know the VIN. Expires 9/28.