Touring the Fatherland
 

Just got back from my favorite (albeit biased) nation to visit, Touring from Bavaria (Munich) up to Nord RheinWestfallen (Bielefeld).

Weather for the time of year was pretty typical depending upon the area. Sunny and warm in the south, and much cooler and rainy in the north.

Total tally: 7 days, 1109 miles, 3 Schnitzels (Weiner Art) and too many bier's pounded down to count. When you're visiting relatives it's impolite to say "I've had enough" until it's a ridiculously obvious conclusion.

General impressions of the 328iT:

N52 is very smooth, with decent pickup even in automatic tranny mode. It's certainly no N54, but compared to the E46 it's a pleasant uptick in power delivery.

New generation of RFT's are a vast improvement over its predecessor. Not nearly as jarring as the RFT's that came equipped on the 135. Since this is the little woman's ride I have no plans on swapping out, at least until I have to go through the joys of replacing one.

E91 is as handsome as I suspected. I still have some issues with the front headlights and facia that have existed in my mind since the E90 debuted in 2006, but certainly the latest LCI is a nice albeit modest improvement.

Space Gray is a very nice, conservative color and the Type 193M spider spoke rims are very visually appealing.

Saddle brown leather is fairly supple, and sport seats with adjustable lumbar and sport tuned suspension are confidence inspiring and great for long, fast hauls whether on the A-bahn or country roads (generally standard fare for the marque).

Not all that thrilled with the four window buttons being housed on the door. They are placed so oddly that I have to grope to find them. I kept dropping the rear window instead of the front one. On the E46 the front window button on the center console is fore of the shift knob, and the rear, well, to the rear where it should be. With the E91 I have to take my eyes off the road and visually locate the button, or the wrong window invariably gets dropped. Hopefully the F30 will correct this glaring weakness.

Other than that, in the short amount of time I had with it I could find no other real gripes with the car.

Gas mileage is pretty good. I kept to the break-in guidelines (well, pretty much), but even with many extended spurts at over triple digits still managed to return 25mpg during the period.

Didn't really take any photo's until drop-off day at LogInOut in Munich, so the attached will have to do until after redelivery in four or five weeks.

Sweet! I'm heading out for my ED on my 328iT in 4 days!

Glad you enjoyed it.

Yeah, just wish I could have added another week to my trip. I really wanted to do it in May, but all of the dates were locked up until late June.

Since this is your first visit to Da Welt you'll really enjoy it. It's sooooooo much better than the old digs that it's not funny.

As I was pulling into the drop-off location a LMB E91 was pulling out of Hotel Kempinski. For a moment I thought it might be you until I noticed that the plates weren't from Munich. It looked sweet. I'm sure you'll be jacked up when you finally scope it.

Are you picking up the same day of arrival in Munich, or are you arriving early to so you can get a good night sleep before hitting the strasse?

Same day delivery. I need to squeeze all the action I can out of this trip given that we are leaving two little boys behind.

I picked up same day, too. Had little sleep on the flight over, then took the S-bahn & U-bahn to Da Welt. I arrived about 10:30 with a 3:15 pickup time. I asked the receptionist if I could skip the simulator and other jive protocols since this was my second trip, and after calling someone said he could do it at 11:20 instead. So I pounded down some finger foods with a stiff cup of jamoka, and was rolling out for my 'Victory Lap' around 11:45.

I hadn't used my 15 Euro food voucher yet, so I parked the car in the VIP area and went into the gift shop to get my free key ring with the little woman's name inscribed on it, then loaded up on water and munchies from the cafe. Was on the road by 12:30, eventually arriving around 8pm at my destination. Didn't hit the sack until around midnight. So 36 hours without sleep.

Definitely a crazy schedule, but I've managed to pull it off 5 times now so I'm used to it. Most of it is on adrenalin, so I just have to stop and stretch my legs and get a stiff cup of coffee when I feel like my eyes are glazing over.

Hopefully you're schedule won't be quite as frantic as mine. :)

I'm scheduled for a 5pm delivery but fortunately I'm only headed for Salzburg.

The following day is Salzburg to Venice through lots of alpine roads.

Nice. Congrats, Mike.

Thanks egu!

Attached are some bonus pics I took while at the Welt.

I would have loved to have the black 535d Touring.

And the M Coupe in Valencia Orange as well, which is a stunning color imo.

I found the fly yellow on the Z4 to be interesting.

Happpened to run into the editor in chief of BMWBLOG.COM at the turn-in site at the Munich airport as he was returning with his VO M Coupe.

He had nothing but glowing things to say about it. In conjunction with picking up his 1 M he was also there to report on the 24 hours of Nurburgring, and everyone including AM DB owner's he said were pouring all over the car.

I asked him about whether an upcoming F coupe 2 series M is a possibility and he said it's a virtual lock, probably around late 2014 or 2015 based on his talks with M reps. He said it's more likely a 6 cylinder would be used as opposed to the much rumored 4 cylinder. Only time will tell.

Anyway, the day before my dropoff I reconned the route to make sure I didn't get lost on the way to the airport from my hotel on dropoff day (didn't help 'cause I got lost anyway :D ) and coming up from behind it was a AW M Coupe in the parking lot. I couldn't tell the difference between it and a garden variety AW 135 until I was a moderate distance away.

One things for sure about VO, like it, hate it or be ambivalent about it there will be no doubt what you are looking at when you see it.

Personally, I really dig it. But another likely pipe M dream for me I'm afraid. :)