The trip to Germany Part II

(Day 4)

ore cars, ore speed, ore tuners and Power!

Dinner at St Englemar and BMW M Here we are leaving for St Engelmar, near the Chezk border in the very east of Germany. The last 200 km to St Englemar were just wonderful stretches of Autobahn made out of concrete. We were rarely travelling at less than 200 km/h here. See this video clip. M5 Hellrot with Hartge 20', B8 4,6 Alpinagreen, M5 Jet Black with AC Schnitzer 19', M5 Carbonblack with Hartge 20'. You could see the employees of the gas stations giving each other high fives when the M Power convoy entered! Here we are removing the bugs from the windows, checking the tyre pressure, checking oil, checking washerfluid and trying to convince bystanders that we aren't insane. King of the Autobahn (Until a Porsche 996 Turbo shows up!). M3 3,2 chasing M5 E39 and the B8 4,6. So, what do we have here? An SL600 that wants to play... The license plate said "SL600" so we immediately realized that it was a SL600 when he was sneaking up behind us. We easily "killed" him with the B8 4,6 massive torque and the M3 3,2 also stressed him from behind. Well, we got a "thumbs up" from that guy too. I bet he was surprised his V12 couldn't keep up with a little BMW 3-series Touring and a Sedan! Notice that all of us have the lights on because you are noticed much sooner by other cars, which is important at these high speeds. Sweden has a law that requires everybody to use their halfbeams (in daylight). Maybe that's because everybody drives so fast in Sweden :) Checking that everything is alright... Which BMW M power ensure it is! Trucks suck! Those are our worst enemies! Notice all the bugs on the windscreen. High speed curves at 200+ km/h in perfect weather are the car's natural habitat... ...if you don't have to brake in the next curve because of traffic jams! Keeping distance is the key when driving in a group. It's smart not to drive too fast in blindcorners. Better to do that on the straights :) ... ...where you can find other cars to race and beat (if your M5 is equipped with an anti-250 km/h limiter). Here we're playing with an Audi RS4, the 380 HP station wagon. Why isn't there an M5 Touring? Here we are enjoying the Bavarian scenery and also enjoying the fact that we're currently lost. Notice the 520i emblem on the M5. Johan and his passenger CarlT asked a local person for the way to the hotel, which has the name of Romantik Hotel St Englemar. The person replied "Ein romantisches hotel?" and looked at Johan in a "funny" way... So they had to do some additional explaining to avoid being given directions to a love-hotel! Arrived at St Englemar Here we are at our hotel enjoying some weissbier, a three course dinner and some more beer combined with Formula 1! Can't go wrong! We had a very nice dinner, and got special M5 Menu. While browsing the guest book of the hotel we noticed that Joachim Millberg (the then CEO of BMW, now resigned) and the whole BMW board of directors had had a dinner and meeting there over the last weekend! The world is a small place! The visit to BMW M GmbH The morning after we headed for BMW M in Garching just outside Munich. On our way there we noticed 5 and 7-series as police cars. I am quite sure they weren't 540i and 750i. We arrived a little late because of some traffic jams caused by crashes. On the picture above we parked outside the main entrance. The facilities are actualy on street Daimlerstrasse! We were very well taken car of by a director at BMW M. He held a speech about the history of BMW M, what they offer through their various branches Fahrertraining, Individual and BMW M. He also gave examples of the M cars of his choice that serve different purposes: Going on a businesstrip to Hamburg from Munich, he would choose the BMW M5 For a trip through the French Alpes he wouldchoose the BMW M3 For a trip to St Tropez on the Cote d'Azure he would chose the M3 Convertible He also told us that all parts on the M5 are engineered to withstand speed up to 298 km/h. Also that the 250 km/h speed limit is actually 257 km/h, because the +/- 3% allowed error rate is included. He also said that he once told his BMW employees that if they think that Alpina makes better cars than BMW M he shouldn't work for BMW M, which I could understand. He also mentioned that the E39 M5 never will be available with the SMG II, and the SMG II adds 9 kg extra weight to the M3. Further, he said that development on the E39 M5 has ceased and that they are currently only focusing on the new M5 of the future 5-series, the E60. After our Q&A session we were guided through BMW Individual to see what possibilities there are to personolise your BMW. Please enjoy (some) of the photos!     This is a 750iL designed by Fashion Designer Carl Lagerfeld for the former four seasons palace in Berlin which also was decorated by Lagerfeld. The idea was to give the guests the same ambience of the hotel when they got into the limousine. Everyone has his own taste! The Four Seasons Hotel in Berlin has a silver roof and red metallic walls too...   The majority of the cars were 'Individual' 7-series E38s. Maybe customers wanted to stockpile before Mr Chris Bangle design entered the scene? Below a skilled Individual craftsman installs a fax machine. BMW have to take into consideration crash tests (such as rolling, sideimpact and more) when installing components. So it may not be as easy as it looks, becasue every part is tested for safety in case of an accident. Here is the BMW L7 which is 5,374 m long and weighs 2215 kg. It's equipped with a huge TFT screen that comes up at the touch of a button. It does 0-100 km/h in 7,1 s and the standing km in 27,1 s. Of course the cordless keyboard to the integrated computer is covered in leather. Notice the special woodpanelling in the picture below with the different sorts of wood that have been integrated. Above is the BMW L7 again equipped with TFT screens in the headrests.   Notice the attention to detail when sewing the leather interiour. Leather on the dash, middel console, well everywhere. Give the banner to the right a click to sponsor the site. (it will be a pop up, so you can kill it quickly...) Here is the Caramel interiour. Noitce the stitching on the edges. You can have anything you want covered in leather, even in leather only 0,8 mm thick. A McLaren F1 engine which is essentially a double M3 3,2 enigne. Notice the attention to detail on each part. The steeting wheel down left is the M Sport steering wheel in alcantara for excellent grip. The component the person is holding in his right hand is a carbon panel for the navigation surroundings (pre 16:9 format). Individual interiour and exteriour on this E46 330Ci.   After our guided tour we got a demonstration of the SMG II gearbox for the M3 which gave us the impression that it should be far superiour and faster than the Ferrari 360 Modena F1 gearbox. And our wishes were fulfilled, an M5 Touring! Too bad it's just a one off belonging to one of the BMW M bosses. And yes there are a lot of interesting cars going around in the Garching area. Some inside info regarding M3 Sedan: "Well, I spoted the powerdome, that's why I noticed it first, and the car was driving slowly in an avenue next to me, we were nearly halted next to eachother, I could see that the seats were M3's, of course the side "gills" of the M3 were in, but you can put it in any car, my friend owns a 330 Ci touring, with the gills on it, and four exausts, but has nothing to do with M3, and doesn't look "m", I'd say... The thing on that sedan was that the four pipes came out from the center, not laterally, and a normal sedan 3er 2001 has the reserve wheel underneath the car, right at the place where the exhaust is for the M, since the M comes with the compressor for the leakin tires here in Switzerland and Italy, and so there is place for the pipes. So at Dähler, they said it would be impossible or way too expensive to get rid of that reserve wheel and then install this kind of exaust. Last thing is: I called M, my friends there... there are actually 4!!!!!! M3 sedans working and rollin in Munich for test... one with SMG II+ (sort of testing software and components for "city drivestyle"). And yes, at the moments there are NO plans to build a sedan M3, (that's what they said 2 months ago about the M compact, and there it is now!!!!) So I am quite interested, because a nice little 3er sedan with SMG II and 343 BHP could be fun as a business car... quite stealth." Maybe BMW will plan to have the M3 Sedan between the M5 E39 and the new E60 M5? Just as they had in 1995 to 1997? Time will tell! BMW M spokesman said there won't be an M3 Sedan, because the M3 Sedan was only popular in the USA and UK. But the same inside info source mentioned one important rule: "Negative, was M GmbH made, BTW, the M bodykit is quite different than the real Ms on the E46 version, not the design, but dimensions... And 1st rule at BMW is not to trust what the director says... Was M3, but as I said test Number, so maybe just a rollin' concept."