This trip started out from Bryan, TX on Wednesday November 11, 1998. I left Bryan in my
1998 ///M roadster at about 6:30pm. I drove on I-20 to the Louisiana/Mississippi border
and stopped at a rest stop to sleep a bit in my car (kind of cramped for somebody
6'6"!). I slept about 3 hours then it was back on the road again. Instead of going
directly to the plant in Greer, SC, I went to Columbus, GA to pick up my dad (present
owner of 2 BMWs including the 1997 Z3 1.9 that I purchased new, but neither is an ///M
car). We arrived in Greer about 10pm.
Friday morning was the first event for the weekend. We were both on the waiting list for
the ///M coupe driving event, but Suzy Kraft was unable to attend and kind enough to give
me one of her spots in the event (thanks Suzy). We were bused to a part of the
Greenville/Spartanburg airport where two autox courses were laid out (mirror images) and a
hospitality tent. Each course had 4 ///M
coupes sitting there ready to go. First they had a Continental breakfast for us. Scott
Doniger (///M brand manager for BMW NA introduced Derek Daly who became the unofficial
emcee of the weekend's events (for those who don't know he was a BMW factory driver and
runs a driving school in Las Vegas that features BMW Z3s). He started by talking to many
famous BMW race car drivers (Hans Stuck, Dieter Quester, Bill Auberlin, Boris Said, Mark
Simo, and Davy Jones) as well as the PTG Racing team owner Tom Milner. After that we went
out to the autox course where everybody got 4 practice laps with an instructor
in the car. (This is me geting ready for my practice laps)
After those were done everybody got 2 timed laps to get one of the top 13 times for that
course to run in a gymkhana type event against the other course. (Gymkhana
was where the 13 amateurs ran the course and got out of the car as fast as you could,
tagged the next person in line and they got in the car and fastened the seatbelt and ran
the course. The 13 amateurs went first and then 3 pros went. (The hardest part seemed to
be the seatbelts) After it was done the last pro in the car on the winning team did donut (note how far the car is away, indicating my team didn't win).
After that the 3 pros ran against each other. And the winner this
time was our pros (btw the guy in the foreground is Derek Daly). One neat thing was the
other course got done with their timed laps before us (even though they had more
"cone killing" going on), the pros over there were running on the course,
sometimes only feet behind each other! We got done about noon and BMW served lunch. As we
sat down for lunch it started drizzling and the group for the afternoon started arriving.
It was chilly (mid 50s) and my dad was shivering eating lunch (I told him to wear a
sweatshirt, but did he listen to me?- kids, sheesh! :) That was the only official event
for Friday, but we did tour the factory. I felt a bit rushed (just like at the Homecoming)
but did see an X5 body getting ready to be painted and some X5s being put together
(pre-production). The coolest part was that (unlike during the Homecoming tour) we got to
go inside the measuring room! Very cool and expensive tools.
But Carter Lee told me about a lady from Chicago that was organizing a dinner at a
restaurant in downtown Greenville that was very close to the Peace Center where a dinner
during the 1998 Z3 Homecoming was held. At dinner we sat
across from 2 guys that had ///M1s (the car that started it all). One guy was Gordon, who
was from New York and had a white ///M1 that was once run in the One Lap of America
(incidentally the license plate was a special One Lap New York plate that read "ONE
LAP"). The other guy was from Cincinnati and owned a red one (the way I understood it
was that he bought his ///M1 from Gordon!). He also brought down 2 other ///M cars he
owns- an ///M roadster, and an E34 ///M5 Touring that he build from a 525iT and a wrecked
///M5 since the E34 ///M5T (front view, rear
view) was never imported to the US. Oh yeah, he left his E30 ///M3 at home. Sitting
next to my dad was a guy that runs the ///M3 registry on the net. We also me one other guy
that has been to most of every Octoberfests in the past 20 years. He said all of his
vacation time is spent doing BMW CCA events! Now that is dedication.
Saturday started out lining up for the panorama photo. (Here
is the middle front of the photo- note the ///M logo painted on the grass and the 4
///M1s). The problem with this was is took entirely too long (nearly 4 hours) to line the
cars up (and when it was done the ///M roadsters and coupes were at the very fringes of
the photo- I kind of expected them to be around the ///M1s since they are made in the US).
There were many other cars that didn't get into the photo. This pic shows E36 ///M3s as far as the eye can see. There were also a lot of E30 ///M3s. The more expensive the cars got, the less there were.
Here are the ///M5s. Here is a pic of an ///E30
M3 cabrio that a guy made (just like the E34 ///M5T). (He also had a great license
plate frame that read "There were BMWs long before there were yuppies.")
The next event I went to was the "History of ///M" video and technical
presentation. Speaking here were Scott Doniger- BMW NA ///M Brand Manager; Craig
Westbrook- Liaison Engineer, Coordinator ///M Cars USA; Albert Biermann- Manager,
Suspension Development; Peter Meier- Sr. Engineer, Engine Development; and Hermann
Kienzle- Regional Sales Manager Overseas. Also there was the President of BMW ///M GmbH.
They showed a cool video of the history of the ///M brand and then they talked about the
new E39 ///M5 that just underwent press introduction in Europe. They also had a question
and answer period but wouldn't talk about the E46 ///M3 or any other future cars (they
also said the Z07 has NOT been given the go ahead yet, but I don't believe them). It was
asked if the Individual program was coming and they said that they are working on that for
1999 (the Individual program is part of BMW ///M), but the hardest part is coordinating
production issues (IMO it shouldn't be that hard since they already do it for Europe). It
was also asked if they were trying to make an E46 ///M3/4 (latest rumors are no), they
said they can't talk about it, but I would guess that they may try to get it to work since
they showed that 60% of ///M sales are in the US and the E36 ///M3/4 accounted for more
than 50% of sales in the US. The last thing they did was show a video of the new X5 SAV
(E53). Later I asked about the engines for the E46 ///M3. I asked if it was going to be a
"world car", I was told yes. I also asked if the performance was going to equal
to or more than the present Euro ///M3 performance, I was told yes.
BMW had a tent to display select race cars and one original
///M1. This car was the precursor to the Motorsport heritage.
It is a 3.5 CSL that was nicknamed the "Batmobile" due to the wild body parts. Another one from the same era without all the fender flares. This
one shows an E21 320 in race trim. Here is one ///M1 ready to race. And another. And a rear shot. A regular ///M1 from the front,
side, and rear.
In the middle of the day they started up the 1995 LeMans winning McLaren F1. This pic shows
the unique feature of this car, that the driver's seat is in the middle of the cockpit
(btw- in the road going version the 2 passenger seats are on either side of the driver).
Here is pic of the engine. And a pic from the back. Side view. Here are some
pics showing the doors, front
with the doors up, and finally from the rear.
Outside the Zentrum PTG had their trailer and tent set up. Inside were the race cars with the hoods open. Another view. (How can I
get THAT intake into my ///M roadster?)
Inside the Zentrum was the car that gave the shape to the ///M1. This
car was shown at the Munich Olympics. It has the 2002 turbo engine in it. A view from
the rear, makes no mistake where the ///M1 evolved from.
This is a view of the funky interior. Another car inside
was the E30 ///M3 that won some Euro touring car championships
in the late 80s.
Even though this isn't an ///M car, it is a great example of a very rare BMW. It is the 2002 turbo. One other view.
After drooling over the race cars, we went on a tour of the factory (sort of like the day
before, but we didn't get to see as much but we got to get closer to the stuff). All the
X5s we saw yesterday were now covered! One thing we got to see was a Euro and a US front
suspension before they were installed. The Euro car gets the 2 piece floating rotors, why
don't we get them? They had an engine and drivetrain and some other engines sitting in the
K platz they you could play with. I got to look at how the shifter and transmission work(I
never really understood it before, I still don't but I have a better idea now). We also
saw an X5 chassis, but I didn't pay attention to what the engine was! Other interesting
things I saw were: an Orinoco exterior with an interior from the Individual Program. (the
interior was interesting because it looked a lot like the color of the tan leather Ferrari
uses; and a coupe that had "Fulled Walnut Napa Leather"- a very dark tan leather
than looked GREAT. Last interesting thing I saw was the ///M roadsters on the line had 1.9
rims on the rear since there was some problem with the rear rims or tires.
The next event was a question and answer period with the PTG staff. They had the drivers,
Tom Milner, and the suspension and engine guys answering questions. Pretty cool stuff.
One cool thing was that the race car drivers (I think it was Hans Stuck in particular) was
trying to get all the ///M owners to sign HIS poster! (a reversal of roles I must say)
The ending events were the awards for the Concours. The gave out awards for the best stock
car and best modified car for each model except they combined the ///M roadster and ///M
coupe (I didn't win). Next was the awarding of the 100,000th
///M car to one lucky winner of the BMW CCA Octoberfest raffle. They were down right
cruel to the winners on how they determined who won the car. They had all 13 winners on
the stage and they drew 5 names as the "finalists", then of that 5 they started
eliminating them one by one until it was down to two. And the winners were Beth and Michael Colwell of Cedar Rapids, Iowa
(actually I think it was Beth who won it).
After that was done, you had 2 options: 1) get the BBQ dinner they were serving, or 2) go
look at the 100,000th ///M car and the winners in their new car, or 2) DROOL over the new E39 ///M5. Most people chose looking at the ///M5. After
looking at the ///M5 we went and at the great food, then we took off back to my parents
house. I took the next 2 days to get home. All in all 2255 miles in 5 days. 20.45mpg at an
average speed of 70ish (including stops and slow downs). It was a long trip and I must say
that about 3 hours in the ///M roadster is about all I can handle before I need to get out
and stretch my legs.
Now I must make a decision: do I try to go to both the 99 Homecoming and M day USA 99, or
do I go to one or the other? I must say I was an ///M nut before I was a fell in love with
the roadster, so I think that ///M day USA 99 will be my first choice next year. (Sorry
roadster owners)
The funniest thing was when I got home I found this sitting on
my doorstep. (For those that don't know it is an ///M mobility kit- fix a flat with and
aircompressor.
Email me: Bruce
This page last updated on November 18, 1998.
