So this was from a while ago, when I was at the Vespa dealer asking all sorts of questions. The salesguy, after being bombarded with my inquiries, handed me a key, took my CDL and told me, “don’t crash”.
Parked for lunch across the street from SFFD Station 2
This was a GTS300 and I took it through the Broadway Tunnel going and over the hills and through traffic on the way back. After returning to the dealership, the salesguy asked how I liked it. I replied, “I get it”.
Although it took me a while to pull the trigger to get my GTV250. Garage queens are hard to find.
Here’s the plane that the Rolls Royce Trent engine was attached to. Way cool!
Boeing 787 Dreamliner! And the Star Wars theme didn’t end at the outside of the plane. In Business, there was a Yoda. In Economy, we got similarly attired headrests and CAs.
I just finished watching Top Gear’s Vietnam special, where the challenge was to ride clunker bikes from Saigon to Halong Bay with no support, along with the usual TG silliness. You’ve got an hour fifteen? Watch these.
Top+Gear+Vietnam+Special+-+Part+2 Part 2
It reminded me of my trip to Hanoi a few years back, especially with all the bikes and traffic. Also how terrific looking the countryside and coast looks too. Riding the coast from South to North has been on my list of “stuff to do” for a long time now and although I’d love to do it on my V-Strom or even a BMW GS (R or F), I’ll probably wind up doing it on one of the locally available bikes, which would be the right thing to do, both for fitting in and for ease of repair. Yeah, nothing like travel shows to whet the appetite of the wanderlust monster inside all of us…
I chose to break this up into two parts because there’s a lot of photos.
The 507 gets a special nod here. Not only because it’s probably one of, if not the most beatutiful BMW ever made, it was a car that helped put BMW on the map in the 1950s. This model was also imported to the USA in small quantities which helped establish the brand there.
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And here’s the Z8, the modern interpretation of the 507.
It’s a good looking car, but the 507 is better. It has more character and looks like art. The Z8 looks like a car designed by a committee and a wind tunnel
The 02 series was BMW’s first mass market seller and put them on the map. It saved the company and as befitting such an important model, it gets its own space.
Dig those 60’s lights and colors man! This is definitely a form follows function car. It’s not going to win any beauty contests but it drove like a sports car. That you could take the kids to school in and get groceries with.…or you could take it rallying. This is the ti version, which meant dual carbs. The standard 2002 had a single carb and the tii had fuel injection. The ti is the rare one.
The draw here, for those of us not collecting a car for European Delivery, is the Museum.
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When you enter, there is this mobile of every model that BMW has made over the years. The museum consists of two main parts, motorcycles and cars, with a small Motorsport section.
One of BMW’s first cars, a Dixi 3/15IMG 6441IMG 6430IMG 6431IMG 6446
Although I like motorrad, the draw for me are the cars. Every iconic BMW is here in mint condition as well as their recent cars.
IMG 6432The 3.0 cs, fuel injected so it’s really a csi. IMG 6437IMG 6442The 328, complete with firing order.
Here’s a teaser from my recent visit to the BMW Museum in Munich. This was one of my favourite parts of the museum.
What’s the most powerful letter in the alphabet? M!
This traffic jam consists of ALL the M class cars ever produced. I learned that the M635csi is a true collector’s piece because it’s just a good looking car, the first generation M5 came in other colors besides black, and the first M3 (E30) is still a good looking car and the previous M3 (E46) looks pretty damn good too!
An M5 in a color other than blackE46 in frontNewer cars in the front, classics in the rearThe world’s fastest Traffic Jam…This is the current E90 M3. I like this!!
To get a feel on just how motorhead the museum is, here’s the engine exhibit; every M engine that was made for the cars you just saw. Artsy!
IMG 6461IMG 6460See the headphones hanging in front of the engines? That’s so you can listen to the engines rev from idle, up the rev band to red line and back down to idle againBefore the M division made cars for us to drive, they made engines for Formula 1 teams. This is the Brabham BT54 type that Nelson Piquet drove in the 1985 Campaign
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