Sunday,
October 15, 2016 Santa Monica Airport
I
remember sitting at the BMW dealership with my sister when I was about 10,
which is a big deal because I’ve pretty much forgotten everything from my
childhood except what my sister has told me.
We sat playing that hand clapping game called numbers while my parents
went in and out of a room for at least a few hours. At the end of that day we drove home in the
only new car I remember us ever buying, a gray 325is. It was a manual 6 speed with those odd square
power window buttons on the center console instead of the door. The same power window buttons that I used to
close the window on my dad’s fingers outside of Valerio’s Bakery in Mira Mesa;
I got an earful for that one. It was a
2-door couple with tan leather seats. I
remember cleaning the crap out of the interior the day of homecoming when I was
16; my dad had decided that he would let me take the car out on my own for this
special occasion. The BMW inline 6
cylinder engine was a very popular motor and made great low end torque for a
6-cylinder, and for a kid that was just 16.
I had let my buddy Ryan Wong drive it back from band practice one and he
spooled it up all the way to redline as I screamed at him to shift; I’d never
been in a car that was driven so aggressively.
Now I do it just cause it still gives me a rush. When my sister was stationed in Guam, she
took the BMW with her. At some point it
dropped the timing belt and she kept driving it. The cylinders seized and I thought it was a
goner, but my dad decided to fly out to Guam and spend a week with my sister as
he rebuilt the motor. Come to think of
it now, that’s true dad status; nice work dad.
My sister changed military bases to Boston and brought the car with her
and I subsequently moved to NYC. When I
got my first job at Northrop Grumman, she gave me the car to commute from the
city to Bethpage, Long Island. I
remember my first winter doing that commute.
A typical morning was about an hour, and in the evening it was an hour
and a half. On a really bad snow day,
the commute could be 3 hours. This was
my first experience with snowy winter driving and so I didn’t know when there
is a snow plow on one direction of the freeway and you’re going the other
direction on the freeway, the wet snow that the plow throws in your direction
will smash your windshield in when you’re going 45 mph. I got a ticket for a broken windshield on the
way home that day. The car’s life ended
with a faulty water pump going bad and overheating the engine in the middle of
a snow storm. We ended up donating the
car for a $300 tax write-off. But those
are the memories that fuel my love for BMWs and was the reason that I bought my
2008 BMW E92 M3 coupe sight unseen, 9 months before the car was going to be available to the public. I still own that car, and plan
to forever. It was the first and last
new car I’ll ever buy.
…But
it doesn’t hurt to look around.
BMW throws a bunch of drive events, car unveilings, and promotional shows and I make it to about one a year. I have no idea what they were trying to convince the buyers of at this event other than, “Check out what crazy ideas we have in store for you guys!” Either way it made for some great photos and a nice event even though the test drives for the i8 was all reserved an hour after the event started. BMW now owns Rolls Royce and Mini, hence the brands shown in the pictures. Now to find a used X5!
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