Well i finally got it and here is the story of delivery and the drive home.
on thursday morning i got off of work and went to the airport, My dad and I flew to atlanta and then rented a car, an Oldsmobile Alero, and drove down to greenville-Spartenburg airport.
When we got to the airport we returned the car and called the marriot from the courtesy phone near the baggage claim. The Marriot said we will be there right away, just look for the silver 5 series wagon. About 5minutes later the car showed up.
It was very clean and the gentelman took our bags and put them in the rear, He then drove us to the marriot where we were checked in very very quickley. He showed us the facilites like the pool, computer etc. and then brought us to the room with our baggae. He asked what time we wanted to eat dinner and we said 8 O' clock.
He said no problem and that we could be early or late if we wanted.
at 8 we went down to the resturaunt and they seated us and brought us the menu, they also had a side menu that BMW recomends although you dont have to order from it. We ate dinner and went back to the room.
the next morning (friday) there was approx 10 couples going to pick up cars. They put us in the Marriot van and drove us to the performance center, one couple rode in the bmw wagon to the center because the van was full.
When we arrived i saw my car in the front in the main enterance.
you can barely see it in this picture.
We then went in and Ginger introduced the staff to everybody, then she called out peoples names 7 couples went to the 2 hour driving course and three couples went to delivery.
I went to delivery with ginger.
here is my car waiting paitently.
While giner was showing me the differnt featues of the beast she,
( i look pretty stupid right here)
noticed there was some dirt on the underside of the passenger mirror, barely noticible and she said she was sorry and i told her it was ok dont worry about it.
about half way through delivery my friend arrived. He lives in North carolina and has a M3 that he took delivery at the perfromance center.
When he took delivery though the factory tours were not open because they were re-tooling for the Z4 so ginger let him come back down for the tour that he missed
here is his car.
After she was done the delivery she introduced me to another gentelman whos name i dont remember (i always forget names)
Anyway she said that he was going to go take my car to the back to go get it cleaned up, i asked what she meant ans she reminded me of the mirror.
So off he went with my car,
When he got back he parked it across from the main enterace inbetween two new Z4s.
after delivery we went to a short class for a 2 hour "driving school"
I was supposed to be in an M5 but something got a little mixed up and i ended up in the X5 class wich was more fun. (it didnt matter since i get to go back for the full 2 day course anyway.)
we went to the X5s and went onto the track for an hour, just a small portion of the track, there was a slalom set up and a panic brake and steer portion set up.
we really got to beat on the X5s.
It was pretty good and was a good class, The X5 4.4 really doesnt handel at all like a truck, it handels quite nicely and is rather quick.
After an hour or so we went to the off road course where we did some more exercises, it really showed off the X5s capabilitys. I was impressed and i used to own a Land rover. the X5 is very capable, I thought it was a big car before this. It has great apporoach and departure angles and pretty good articulation as well. the ground clearance is the only thing it is lacking, I needs to have about 1.5-2.5 inches more clearance to be a good off roader. It is a BMw though and 90 percent or more will never go anywhere where they will even need 4 inches of ground clearence.
so two thumbs up on the X5.
After this we went and ate lunch in te performance center wich was very good, they had a choice of about 8 or 9 entrees to choose from.
after lunch we all headed off to the Factory tour.
when we drove up the the factory we went up on the sidewalk and parked our cars on the sidewalk near the zentrum.
We went in and we were given about 20-30minutes to tour the museum where they had some neat cars, a old CSL, the Z3 from the james bond movie, and a Lemans art car, just to name a few.
after a while we were then given a tour of the factory wich by itselt was worth the whole trip. It is simply amazing at how they build the X5s and Z4s. The tour concentrates more on the X5s assembly than the Z4 but you did get to see both being built.
Both left hand and right hand drive cars are assembled there side by side.
No cameras were allowed and this post would get even LONGER if i went into detail about the factory so go see it for yourself.
After that we looked around the zentrum some more and took a few more pcitures and then we left. when we got outside only My friends M3 and my beast were still there, Everybody else had already left leavng us with some nice photos.
We then said goodbye and we left to drive home (New Orleans, anybody from here?)
We drove to Atlanta and stayed the night in a marriot wich was nice.
Here you can see the beast sleeping from the hotel room.
We ate dinner that night and then left in the morning and got home saturday afternoon.
Most of the drive was in the rain so when i got home i washed the car and then put it up in the garage. It was a great trip and i highly recomend everyone to take delivery at the performance center It was incredible.!
full size pictures are here plus alot more (three pages)
ill post driving impressions in another post once its done break-in and has its 1200mile service.
some more misc. Shots.
Got my Beast. Performance center delivery, etc.
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