The European Delivery deal is:

1. You save $2500 off the invoice, BEFORE taxes. For a Connecticut guy, this means you save another 6% of $2500, or $150; so that's $2650 saved on a 3-series.

2. You can go to Germany and back, being smart and frugal and fast, for $1000. You get a ticket from Hotwire, and you probably stop in Amsterdam, or maybe in Shannon, Ireland on the way. You stay at a comfortable, but inexpensive 2-star hotel in Munich - making hotel arrangements from Hotels.com. You travel in Munich by subway (very clean and efficient) including the part where you go get the car (subway stop is about 2 blocks from BMW). You leave Thursday night from New York, arriving Friday morning in Munich. You get the car on Friday - as soon as you can check in to your hotel and get to the factory. You get the car, you drive over to the BMW Museum for your tour. You drive back to your hotel, park the car in a locked garage they have (make sure of this before you make reservations). Sleep, or try to. Drive on the autobahn on Saturday morning. Drop the car off at the shipper in Munich on Saturday afternoon - you make "special arrangements" to do this, no big deal, though. You take the subway back to hotel & try to sleep again until dawn, when you get up and take the subway back to the airport and take the plane(s) home. You go to work on Monday. So, you save (2650 minus 1000 = ) 1650 and you've been to Germany. If you possibly can leave on Wed night, you can get the factory tour, and a full day of driving on Friday - I recommend doing that though it'll cost an extra night's stay at the hotel.



Notes from the trip:

Ja I haf been in München! (Munich)

In April, I took the Thursday night flight, through Amsterdam, to Munich. At the airport I bought a "go anywhere unlimited 2-day pass" and took the S-bahn and U-bahn system to my hotel. Check-in, shower, shave, change of clothes, and I'm on the U-bahn, arriving at BMW about 11:30AM local time.

I rang a bell at the gate, and a young fraulein came out to let me onto the premises - which is really the factory, I guess - and lead me to the European Delivery lounge area. At the main desk, I presented my passport & driver's license, then ate the free lunch upstairs in the loft-café, and waited till they called my name, went downstairs and met Günter (Hans was busy, I guess).

Günter and I reviewed paperwork, and then made a confirmation call to Herr Behrends at the shipper to make certain of the Saturday delivery. This costs an extra $75, but makes the whole over-the-weekend European Delivery possible. I suggested that I could be there by 1:00PM, to which Behrends replied "you could come a bit later... at two-serty." Thinking that he wanted me there late in the day, I offered to come even later, at three or four PM. Behrends quickly replied that "you vill be here at two-serty." Of course, well, two-thirty it is, then.

Once the paperwork was completed, Günter donned a pristine white lab coat, doubtless part of the marketing plan, and took me out to the garage to get my car. The garage floor is painted a high gloss gray, probably weekly. It gleams. A few new BMWs await their owners here, including a Z4, an X5, a 325i, and just over there my very own 330xi. Titanium Silver. Premium Pakage, Cold Weather Package, Xenon lights. Just the way I wanted.

I walk around the car as Günter warms to his task - to show me various features. According to Günter, these features - each of them - is "sooper, ja!" Of course, Günter is correct in his litanty.
"Six-speed, sooper!"
"Terrific," I reply.
"Rain sensing vipers - sooper, ja?"
"Awesome!" I comment.
"Seat varmers, zree settings. Sooper."
"Excellent," I note.
"Black lezur interior. Zis is sooper, ja?"
"Sweet!" I say.
No matter what superlative I suggest though, Günter is sticking with "sooper!"

Günter was particularly excited by the Harmon Kardon stereo ("Ja, Harmon-Kardon, Sooper!"). So, to test it out I opened my little black book of CD's, mostly classic psychedelic rock - ALL of which Günter recognized... "Allman Brozurs, sooper!... Jesro Tull ah, Akvalung, sooper, ja?..." which was all OK, but when he said "Oh, Little Feat, sooper! - Dixzie Chicken, ja?" I decided to toss that one into the player & crank it right up. Lowell George sounded, well, sooper!

SooperGünter and I went through the features, and the break-in recommendations (do not vorry, just drive ze car but no more zen 4500 rpm for ze furst zousand miles or so, ja? Sooper). I am ready to go.

But, it is too late to take the factory tour (the only unexpected glitch in the whole deal, and my fault for not checking this out). So, I get my ticket for the BMW museum, directions from Günter, turn the key, listen to the three-liter purr, and off I went. The tires squeaking on the glossy painted floor as I ease out of the garage.

The BMW Museum is a few blocks away, co-located with corporate HQ, and Günter's directions are precise. However, once inside the gate, I turn the wrong way - toward corporate parking instead of the museum, and with Little Feat blaring away, up into the corporate parking garage - 5 floors of BMW's ranging from old beaters to brand new. The traffic is one-way, so it's up five floors, and down five floors; sort of a BMW gumbo of great cars. Eventually I got out of there and into the right parking lot.

The museum is in an upside-down bowl shaped building, like the Guggenheim in New York City, and the exhibits are on a ramp that spirals upwards and clockwise. You can get earphones in your language of choice to tour with, but I opted not to. Instead I just took pictures of everything. After the tour, I was too tired to do anything but drive back to my hotel, park (in the garage which I determined they had before I booked), and sleep fitfully until morning.

After a big breakfast at the hotel, I retrieved my 330xi out of the garage, and drove to Garmisch, on the border with Austria. The weather was perfect, and the scenery spectacular, but I was into driving, so I only took one picture of some obscure German roadhouse where I turned around to head back to Munich. My plan was to drive about 90 mph on the autobahn. I didn't realize that the Autobahn is only two lanes, and 90 mph is really too slow for the fast lane, but too fast for the slow lane. What the Germans have in mind is about 120 in the left lane, or about 60 in the right. So, if you're trying to go 90, you do a lot of lane changing under duress. At 90 in the left lane, the Mercedes, Audis, BMWs and Porshes come up your six o'clock with lights flashing, front-end dipping under extreme braking pressure, and teutonic invective apparent through their windshields. You move over into the slow lane, and suddeenly you are right on top of a little shoebox of a Smart Car, flashing your own lights, braking hard, and swearing like a sailor. So, with care for the 4500 rpm limit, I eased up the speed in 6th gear, and the Germans and I started to really get along well at this point....

A quick run to the Austrian border and back into Munich with an hour to spare - and the troubles began.... I got lost, spun around, no handy GPS with me, the sun straight overhead, no moss on the trees to determine direction, and I wasn't an Eagle Scout to begin with, y'know - I speak no German, my cell phone wouldn't work, I could not read how the German phones worked, and the map of Munich you get from BMW is not at all detailed...Time kept on slipping into the future, and soon my two-thity appointment with Mr. Behrends was in dire jeapardy. You see, downtown Munich is sort of a giant, overly complex traffic circle - so are the major "ring" roads around it, and I wanted one of those. Each person I'd ask pointed in a different direction! Eventually, by asking "Frankfurter Ring, bitte?" enough times, a motorcyclist (BMW of course) told me he would lead me there, and made me follow him for a mile through the middle of Munich, then pointed north along Leopoldstrasse, said "2 kilometers" and sped away. Imagine being French and lost in Boston's North End trying to find Harvard University, and you sort of have the idea. The same traffic planners worked both cities, I think.

But, the motorcyclist aimed me true, and I got there, but late, about 2:50 PM, embarrassed and frustrated. Tardiness is not polite in the U.S., but something of a cardinal sin in Germany. I was not punklitsch. But, Mr. Berhends was still there, waving out the window where I should park. I did, and hurridly grabbed all my papers out of the car, jammed them into my backpack, along with the Little Feat CD out of the dash. Scrambling to make up time, I look up to see Mr. Behrends arriving by the side of my car pointing a gun at me!

Wait, its only a power drill. He's come to get the German ("Tol?") license plate off the car so I can keep it. I get the euro warning triangle, but forgot the euro first aid kit in the rush. Oh, well. Behrends and I run - really, pretty funny, two graying old guys running up two flights of stairs, as he explains he has a lunch he is late for (lunch at 3?) with important BMW executives. We sign all the papers in about 90 seconds, I give him a set of keys and keep one myself. Then we run back down the stairs to get in his car so he can drop me at a U-bahn station. The whole process took less than 4 minutes, which is pretty fast when you are turning over a car in this price range you're-not-too-certain-exactly-where in Germany and hoping to see it again in Connecticut!

Behrends drives a Rover with about 190,000 miles on the clock, which he points out as "this old car" somewhat disdainfully. Naturally, I can't resist remarking how he must have bought it when BMW bought the wrong car company. This prompts a nationalistic discussion of the relative merits of automotive excellence among nations of the free world. Nothing you wouldn't expect - best engineering is German, best design is Italian. Worst engineering is something of a toss-up: its either British or Yugoslavian. Japanese cars look as exciting as refrigerators, but they are very good. English cars all look good but they're beaters from day one, though Jaguar is improved. He did tell me some interesting corporate resistance to change stories about the first Rovers the British sent home for an inspection by Munich, with Schnitzels cleverly hidden in the doors....all this, by the by, as he is drivinng down the Autobahn at about 130mph in his Honda-powered Rover. In hopes he might slow down just a bit, I tell him to make certain he blames me for his lateness (with the BMW honchos), he laughs and says, "of course, you are not German." Behrends lived on Long Island for 6 years. Everybody is late in New York.

We squeal to a stop at the U-bahn station, I grab my two bags, and Behrends drives hurridly off to his lunch, and its suddenly very quiet. I am the only person I can see anywhere in this U-bahn station on a sunny Saturday afternoon. But, no problem, I go down the stairs, arrving just in time - along with a little old lady - to miss the train. The lady starts into some sort of Hapsburg diatribe. I shrug to indicate no comprehension, as I observe that German is not the prettiest sounding language on earth. No problem though, she speaks English, and is remarking unfavorably upon Germans from Munich as having no sense of humor. She is, of course, from Berlin, which prompts me to recall that I do know one little bit of German and decide this is the only time I will get to use it...

"Ich bin ein Berliner," I say.

Which pretty much ends the conversation right there. Maybe she didn't like Kennedy or maybe she thinks I am rubbing it in since they aren't helping us much in Iraq.
I am thinking those Berliners aren't all that strong on humor themselves.

So, I make the hotel, go buy some cans of beer to bring home for my German relatives, and try again to sleep more than 30 minutes at a crack until 3:30AM when its up and off to the airport to come home.

Wrongs/Rights; Plusses/Minuses; Lessons Learned
It was more fun than I thought. This is a great way to buy a car. You save money; more $ the bigger the car - so if you're getting a 5 or 7 you'd save even more. Get the best price you can first, then convert that to a EDP price. Allow at least one more day than I did so you can a) get some sleep, and b) arrive at BMW at 7:30AM punklitsch so you can get the factory tour, too. Learn some German before you go, or minimally, buy a phrase book - and don't think they'll have them at the airport! Make certain your hotel has secured parking (you'll feel so much better about it). Even cheap "tourist class" hotels are spotlessly, obsessively clean in Germany. Do NOT take a taxi from the airport, its about $75 or more. Take the S-bahn/U-bahn system. Its cheap, its on time, its clean. If doing it again, I would schedule a vacation, and drive to Italy via the Austrian Alps, and ship the car from there (same company does this). Go in spring or summer, but definitely not in late fall or winter - Munich is too close to the Alps, and it'll be just like Milan - cold & foggy. Germany closes down on Saturday afternoon about 3PM - so don't leave any shopping until then.

German conundrum: For years, Germans wouldn't put cupholders in their cars, losing share to the Japanese year upon year, while claiming that it was unsafe to drink coffee while driving.
However, the Germans sell beer in their gas stations. Go figure.

• 330xi - European Delivery Diary (pic) - cardinal2b 2005-01-17 12:45:01 (1464 views)
  • Ja sooper story. Very detailed just like the car you have now. - kingdom7 2005-06-22 04:24:07 (421 views)
  • What a great story! Sooper, Ja!? (nt) - swiftytoenails 2005-01-18 14:50:41 (667 views)
  • Very entertaining read. You're quite the writer! (nt) - davidc 2005-01-17 22:47:39 (593 views)