What's your garage like?

I have a strange addiction to looking at what other people have done with their garages and workshops, I am known to go and take a look at the gallery on the Garage Journal from time to time (http://tinyurl.com/6kgx7s7)  and peruse the amazing time effort and cash some people put into their garages, not to mention some of the fantastic machinery (the cars!) that live inside them.


I was looking a the gallery this evening when I came across a link to this forum thread: http://tinyurl.com/yjzhj59 how about that for exotic garage space!
I'm thinking of running an article in the magazine about peoples garages, yes the garages, and not the cars, anyone up for it?

Garage with a view?

Guest blog entry: Jonathan Bordell on BMW Mini

 

I hate the Mini......not because of the 'it's not a real BMW' debate. If it's designed by, made by, and sold by BMW, then it's part of the family. I just always thought it was a car that tried too hard. It was twee and fiddly for the sake of it. So it was with no pleasure that I was lent a Mini Cooper D last week. Now it wasn't love at first sight. Of course it had the obligatory black stripes on the bonnet, and after sitting myself in the drivers seat, I was surrounded with a whole mess of random switches and dials in the wrong places. Why does the tiny rev counter sit above the steering column?

It was antithesis of every bit of BMW’s fine ergonomics. So I set off on my 80 mile journey home, and after sticking £35 of diesel in, headed through the pouring rain. 

I didn't drive the car much the next day, but on the following day had to pick the kids up from school and decided to use the Mini.

So in the spirit of a car I did not particularly like, I gave it a proper thrashing. Now I don’t mean I drove like an idiot, I'm not one for using the road like a race track, but I drove the diesel like I would an old petrol hot hatch, and the whole thing came together. The engine was smooth and punchy, revved freely and did not for one moment sound like a diesel. The ride was fluid, the steering precise, the gear change a delight. When I had to give the car back, it still had over half a tank of fuel in it...... And you know what? I fell in love with that little Mini. I ended up loving the fact that every switch was in the wrong place, and every action required me to think about what I was doing. 

So it was with great regret that I returned that Mini to the garage. In a strange way the Mini’s real charms are not in its looks, they are in its talents which run very deep.

If you would be interested in writing a guest blog please email bmwccgb@gmail.com

BMW Car Club On Track - season opener - Monday 28th Feb!

Just a reminder that we open the track day season at Silverstone on their new Stowe Circuit this coming Monday 28th Feb. We have the track exclusively and will be running an open pit lane set-up. For more details please visit our facebook page or contact Nick our track day organiser: nick@bmwcarclubgb.co.uk

Fog light abusers and lane hogs - my rant!

I am guessing that I am not the only person that is extremely annoyed by those folks who hog the middle lane on motorways or the outside lane on dual carriageways? I have tried various means to get their attention to move over. Flashing, moving right out into the right hand lane and then back across in front of them to the inside lane.....in the majority of cases it has no effect whatsoever. Do they not know that they should be on the inside lane? Are they stupid or frightened? If you have a sure fire way of getting them to move over that is legal please do share it with us all....

Another irritation (am I starting to sound like a grumpy old man now?) is people who use their front fog lights when it's not foggy, I say use but they are course have no effect in almost perfectly clear weather...do they think they are safer, cooler, or have I missed some new EU legislation? they must be doing it purposely as there can;t many cars around now where you can leave them on by mistake.....


Most recently I have seen some new cars that appear to put the front fog light on when indicating.....at first I thought there must have been a faulty batch of bulbs as almost every car I spotted had just one fog lamp working, then I noticed a pattern.......and I got annoyed, 
very annoyed!


What's your pet hate when driving........

Guest blog entry: Jonathan Bordell on top flight motor-sport spectating

I've had the pleasure of spending a lot of time in America over the last 20 years and have made many friends along the East Coast from New York right down to Miami. They all know of my passion for Motorsport and one year an old friend asked if I would like to accompany them to Daytona for the NASCAR 500. “Oh I'll check with the wife” I said. “Why?” he asked, “We go with the whole family.” “Oh!” I said, “That might be a bit expensive.” It would be too expensive to take the whole family to F1. He was astonished. 

I then I told him the price with seating and an infield pass would cost me well over £1000 for the F1 GP in the UK. He was very surprised, firstly, because children under 12 in the States are free, but secondly he thought that was very expensive for a whole weekend....”Whole weekend” I said, “That's just Sunday.” He was speechless......

Four days at Daytona with his family would be less than a thousand dollars. More to the point, there was a fun fair, entertainment and loads of things to do. Now this was a few years ago, and with BMW's renewed presence at the recent Rolex Daytona 24hr race I thought I would check the prices this year.  

OK, are you ready for this; full hospitality over the race weekend. Suite, all meals, beer or wine, programme, pit walk, grandstand seating, Q&A’s with a driver, guided garage tours, unlimited soft drinks, and the opportunity to drive the track and have your photo taken crossing the finish line. .....$395...now that's what I call value for money.....

Not NASCAR but a great picture of a great car at Daytona!

If you would be interested in writing a guest blog please email bmwccgb@gmail.com

Nürburgring Oldtimer Grand Prix 2009 featuring M1 Procar - turn up the volume!

No excuses needed to feature this video on our blog, If you have not yet seen M1 Procar's racing then try and get yourself to an event where they are taking part because they are fabulous! This in car footage from Hans Wagner's car is very good quality, if you haven't got time to watch it all then skip to around minute 3 and watch from there!

By way of a reminder, there are only a few places left at a first track day of the year at Silverstone, please get yourself booked in as soon as you can: http://tinyurl.com/67knyxv

Guest blog entry: Jonathan Bordell on Audi

Darren and those other nice people at The BMW Car Club have asked me to contribute to the Club's blog, and in the few minutes I can grab here and there I'll try to jot down the few musings that I have during the course of my working day. 

Now just as a formal introduction I should explain that I help Barney with Classic Heroes, some of you may have seen my recent article in Straight Six; hopefully it shows that I am an enthusiast first and foremost. So my ramblings on here are those of an enthusiast and in no way represent the views of Classic Heroes etc. etc.

Now, with the politics out the way, firstly I'd like to say a big thank you to Audi. Why? Well as far as I can see they have drawn away all the 'owners' that gave BMW owners a bad name. Like the Pied Piper they have flashed their shiny LED eyebrows and tempted them into the Audi fold. Great, that's left all the nice people owning BMW's. Now obviously prejudice aside and in the interests of impartiality I'd like to let you know I have driven two new Audi's in the last month a Q7 and an A4. The Q7 was enormous, why I have no idea, but they are, to be frank, the ergonomics were so poor I couldn't even work out how to change the radio station. However my abiding memory was of the sports seats. They were rock hard; I might as well have been sitting on a plank of wood. I never want to hear a journalist moaning about BMW run flats gain, I think Audi seats also don't have any 'give' in them.

As for the A4, a popular if not "the" popular rival for the 3 series, well I thought Audi's were meant to be well finished, this one wasn't, hard scratchy plastics, indifferent panel fit, it was a mess. I think I'll leave Audi to those 'special people'.

The lights of the Pied Piper?

The golden years of the DTM, nostalgia at it's best!

No apologies for repeating this one here (it was in Webclips a few magazines ago), I can't get enough of this kind of footage, it's some of the best of the DTM, here's 6 minutes of fantastic film coverage from (dare I say it) over 20 years ago! Enjoy.....

The music is a bit dodgy, I'd put some Rammstein as a background myself but it's not mine so...............