Munich

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MOCAŠ

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Spent the weekend in Munich with some friends, and managed to squeeze in a visit to the BMW Museum (and BMW World) while there. Here's a few (iPod, sorry) shots, with a certain bias towards the car on which the Hoffmeister kink first saw the light of day...

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My personal favourite model from BMW's repertoire:
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Across the road at BMW World (OK, BMW Welt), trips around the building in one of the Museum's Isettas were proving popular. Perhaps MB World should offer something similar in a Smart...

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Oh, and this was our transport between airport and hotel. :cool:

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Lovely! Super Neue Klasses there, Barock Engel, Null Zweis, 2000CS, the magnificent 328 and then to round it all off, a pre-facelift W124 still on the job. Its mileage must be inter-galactic!

Incidentally, I hadn't realised until recently that the Hofmeister kink first appeared on the 3200CS which was a Bertone design, but has become associated with Hofmeister.
 
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I had an Isetta back in the mid sixties, a transition between the motorbike and my first car. It had a propensity to eat exhaust valves as I recall, certainly not the ultimate driving machine :D
 
Lovely! Super Neue Klasses there, Barock Engel, Null Zweis, 2000CS, the magnificent 328 and then to round it all off, a pre-facelift W124 still on the job. Its mileage must be inter-galactic!

Incidentally, I hadn't realised until recently that the Hofmeister kink first appeared on the 3200CS which was a Bertone design, but has become associated with Hofmeister.

It was only on the plane home that it occurred to me that I should have asked our taxi driver (a Thai lady) what mileage her chariot had covered. :doh:

Apologies for the slip with the spelling of Herr Hofmeister's name - particularly annoying as I had actually looked it up first in an attempt to verify the origin of "The Kink". While I found the man in Horst Mönnich's The BMW Story - A Company in its Time, I could not find a specific reference to 'his' kink, so I instead leafed through Richard Busenkell's BMW since 1945, and concluded that New Range was indeed its genesis (based on its position in what is a chronologically arranged book).

On closer inspection, it seems that both the 1500 and 3200CS had their first public showings at the same Frankfurt Motor Show, in September 1961. So, it's interesting to hear that BMW's defining styling characteristic actually flowed from the pen of Bertone.

The book also mentions that "the clean styling of the long-awaited [1500] was primarily the work of BMW's own designer, aided by consultation with Italy's Michelotti." Do you have any further information on the extent of Michelotti's involvement?
 
I had an Isetta back in the mid sixties, a transition between the motorbike and my first car. It had a propensity to eat exhaust valves as I recall, certainly not the ultimate driving machine :D

Here's a shot of the one at BMW World, and another one in the Museum's collection. The yellow one is featured in an advert for the Museum on the side of Munich's tour buses, so it's good to see they're not trying to airbrush it out of their history.

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The colour of that 124 looks really nice, or is it simply a faded yellow? :confused:
 
It's the German standard taxi colour, Sweetpea. It's effectively Ivory / beige. I believe it was mandatory up to 2005, but given the number of Mercs on the road, you can always spot the taxis in that colour.
 
The book also mentions that "the clean styling of the long-awaited [1500] was primarily the work of BMW's own designer, aided by consultation with Italy's Michelotti." Do you have any further information on the extent of Michelotti's involvement?

Needless to say, separating out the role of the designer from the BMW design studio is not straightforward, but the 1500 isn't listed as a Michelotti design, whereas the 1600 (later the 02) most certainly is. You see the 1500 like all the Neue Klasse saloons is a touch heavy in looks (too many Bratwurst for breakfast) whereas the 02 has a real delicacy and sharpness of line. A great design.
 
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That fuel spill round the filler cap adds that to "air of authenticity" of "a places to be--- people to move" motor.
 
It's the German standard taxi colour, Sweetpea. It's effectively Ivory / beige. I believe it was mandatory up to 2005, but given the number of Mercs on the road, you can always spot the taxis in that colour.

Indeed. This S-Class certainly stood out in its standard taxi livery.

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I'm sure BMW regularly find it amusing that their cars aren't referred to as Munich taxis....
 
Don't you find it at least slightly amusing that the chief taxi in Munich is a Mercedes-Benz? :)

As Charles has said, I doubt BMW are losing much sleep over this. In fact, I don't recall having seen a BMW taxi in Germany. However, there are a couple of interlopers in this grouping outside the airport:

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Nick Froome once told me that MB had provided cars to the taxi trade for over a 100 years, including special lower powered diesels and of course dashboards with space for the meter etc. Given the extremes of use (some are in use 24 hours a day when the car is leased by a pool of drivers), they have to be reliable, comfortable and economical, so it is a considerable tribute to MB that they still provide the majority, although you see more Skodas, VWs nowadays.

BMW was never really a mass market producer in the same way as Mercedes until comparatively very recently, and nowadays I doubt their brand reputation would like the association with taxis. However, seeing W124s that are 20 years old being driven around still is a pretty amazing tribute to their longevity and reliability. Even when I travelled a lot to Germany on business in the mid 90s onwards, I really cannot recall seeing W123s or earlier models still being used.
 
I was in Munich last year and there was the odd taxi. The 211 we were taxi'd in had a ripe 500,000km on it.

Its a lovely city, stunning architecture, good places to eat and drink (theme of mine).

The cream colour is a wrap, open the doors and you see the real paint colour.
 
BMW's famous HQ building, taken from bridge across Lerchenauer Str. that separates BMW World from the Museum. While Munich was bathed in glorious sunshine for most of our 3-day stay, the rain clouds started gathering late on Saturday afternoon as we headed for the museum, and by the time we had completed our tour of the exhibits, the pristine E21 that had been parked proudly by the entrance had been whisked away to a place of safety.

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Fanta being the German original of course..

Those Inca orange 02s are so period, they are gorgeous. BMW Mobile Tradition (their classics department) constructed one from new using spare parts off the shelf, and to the joy of all 02ers, any parts they didn't have they had made to fill the gaps in decent batches.

The story here - from Bolide (Nick Froome's blogette)
 
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BMW's famous HQ building, taken from bridge across Lerchenauer Str. that separates BMW World from the Museum. While Munich was bathed in glorious sunshine for most of our 3-day stay, the rain clouds started gathering late on Saturday afternoon as we headed for the museum, and by the time we had completed our tour of the exhibits, the pristine E21 that had been parked proudly by the entrance had been whisked away to a place of safety.

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Interesting facts of the day (from a man who spent many happy hours in the above building during my latter Rover days).

  • The 4 cylinder building was constructed from the top down, i.e. the upper floor was erected and the each subsequent lower floor is suspended off it.
  • The taxis are "wrapped" not painted.
 
Some of BMW's sporting heritage:

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