Any of you who know Max, know that in his view of cars there are BMW's and all other cars, much to the chagrin of some of our friends. Long ago Max told me that he had dreamed of buying a BMW and doing a European Delivery to pick it up....fast forward many years and here we are! We ordered the car back in March and requested an early June pick up date, June 5th it was:) Max's brother Denis is also a huge BMW fan, so he flew here from Moscow to experience this whole journey with us.
June 5, 7 am: We are up and ready to meet Denis and head over to the BMW Welt. We are supposed to be there 1.5 hours ahead of our scheduled 9:20 presentation. (This is Germany after all and yes the timing is that precise)
7:45 am: We arrive at the Welt only to find the check in area doesn't open until 8. No problem for us though as there are almost every variety of BMW in the showroom to look around at, including seeing the exterior color of the new car in person for the first time.
8 am: Up the elevator we go to the lounge reserved for such occasions. We are greeted by very friendly BMW staff who spend the next 15 reviewing all the paperwork with us and making sure our day at the Welt is all organized properly. Once that has been finished, we are free to enjoy the services of the lounge until our next scheduled appointment. The lounge had all sort of pastries and breakfast foods, plus coffee, juices and of course German beer! *Spoiler alert, we managed to peek down to the presentation floor and see the new baby for the first time from afar.*
8:50 am: We are standing under a sign with Max's name waiting to get our virtual tour of the car. We meet Judith who will be taking all of us through the virtual tour and the reveal. We all head down to the virtual training centre to review some information specifically about the new car and to virtually test drive some of the features of the new machine, like the different traction controls and ABS systems.
9:20 am: We are back upstairs and ready to head down the presentation staircase. We stop for a good 5+ minutes on the staircase just staring in awe around us and trying to commit everything to memory. The grin on Max's face is priceless! The reveal is supposed to be about 1/2 hour long but with two BMW fanatics asking many questions, it takes closer to an hour before Max can start the car up for the first time (amazing sound!!!!) and take his first short drive around the presentation floor. Once Max had done 3 passes around, we decide that it's about time to park the new car so we can go visit the BMW Museum before our factory tour at 11:45.
11:45 am: Factory tour time. We head off behind the very well protected walls of the BMW factory to see how the 3 series cars are made. Since it is so well protected, we aren't able to take pictures but we were able to see how both the 3 series sedan and touring version are built right from a sheet of metal. The factory is amazingly clean and functional with over 650 robots guiding the building process! I think our favorite robots were the painting ones as they are gentle enough to open the doors and trunk to paint the inside of them! One of the most interesting parts of our factory tour was seeing two cars come out of the factory covered in a shroud. We were speculating that they were the new 4 Series cars that had yet to be unveiled but from what we now know, were revealed a couple of days ago!
1:45 pm: After the facotry tour we decided to have another quick snack in the lounge at the Welt before heading off to the BMW Mueseum. It is full of the history of BMW's as well as some very amazing old cars.
3:30 pm: We are getting ready to head out for the inaugural drive on the Autobahn. Since the Welt also rents BMWs for a period of time, Denis thought he would rent an M550d in the hopes that it would better keep up with the new car, well better than his rental Opal would anyway:) Given that we are super jet lagged after a poor sleep the previous night we are all hitting a serious low and just want to stay sleeping on the comfy couches in the lounge. But it would be the first test of the new machine and a test of the driver's ability to keep the revs below the 3500 mark for the first 2000km break in period. To celebrate the first drive, Denis has brought a bottle of Champagne for us to christen the new ride. Unlike a ship, we didn't smash the bottle against the car but Denis though he would shake it and spray it all over Max and the car! As Denis is spraying everything, Max is trying to wipe it all up so there won't be any sticky spots on the brand new car:)
We head off to Nuremburg, a city about 170km north of Munich. According to google maps, estimated travel time is 1 hour 40 minutes, we made it in an hour! The German Autobahns are amazing in the quality and the German drivers really understand the rules of the road, the left lane being just a lane for passing and not to cruise at 10kph below the speed limit like we encounter all the time back home! ***Safety Alert*** Please don't read below if you have safety concerns...Both Max and I found out the maximum speed of the car as limited by the electronic governor, 243 kph! Max sustained that speed for a bit while I immediately slowed down. Until you get to 200 kph, it really seems like you are cruising on the Deerfoot around 110 kph! At one point I was cruising at 183 kph and was passed by a Porsche as if I was standing still! Thank goodness I was in the right lane:)
11:00 pm: We finally get back to our hotel room, exhausted and exhilarated all at once and so ready for our VorobEuRoad Trip to begin!
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