After a long, but pleasant drive through Europe (especially Austria), yesterday we finally arrived to our first destination, Munchen, Germany. Though we passed through it last year, on our way to Geneva, this is the first time we’re actually staying in this city and we like it so far. I don’t what Munchen residents are saying, but we’ve got the feeling the whole city lives and breathes BMW and we’re not saying this only because we’re car fans. Their location here is huge and it includes the BMW Welt, the BMW Museum and large production facilities.
After yesterday we didn’t manage to get too much rest, today we got to visit some interesting places here in Munchen, with the highlights of the day being the visit to the Welt, to the Museum and to one of their headquarters here, where we picked up a BMW 125i Coupe to drive for the next week, around Germany. A few thoughts on what we saw today:
The BMW Museum. We knew that BMW had an important history, but some of the stuff we found out and saw today was really impressive. For example, we didn’t know that the Isetta’s frontal door design was inspired from refrigerators (Iso, the company which built the Isetta, was also making refrigerators) or that the M models’ names were originally longer (eq: M535i, the M was added before the car’s name), but this changed after US dealerships suggested that shorter name would make customers remember the brand and name better.
Also, it was the first time we saw the amazing GINA Concept. Oh, and by the way, it’s not true that the BMW logo represents the blades of an airplane propeller. That was just a marketing campaign back in the ’50s. Actually, the logo is inspired from the Bavarian flag (the region where Munchen is) who was the white and blue colors.
The BMW Welt. After the great museum tour, we were a little dissapointed in the Welt, because it wasn’t as spectacular as we were expecting.
Don’t get me wrong, if you have the chance to visit it, don’t hesitate, do it, but be careful, because it’s actually an architecture course spiced with a little BMW marketing 
The BMW 125i Coupe. After the Welt and Museum tour, we went to a BMW office, where Alex arranged for us to get the car and drive it around Germany for the following week. The first impression is that the engine sounds a lot like the MINI Cooper S (though the handling is different) and that it’s not a bad car at all. We’re really anxious to the what it can do, in the following days.
Oh, and I almost forgot. In the morning, while we were driving to the BMW Museum, at a stoplight we stopped behind a camouflaged new BMW 5 Series and we managed to take a few spy shots. We’ll publish all the photos soon, but what I can so far is that, from what I saw, it looks like the car will follow BMW recent design direction (the new 7 Series and the new Z4). Anyway, I think the car will be great and I can’t wait for the Frankfurt show to check it out.
I’m going to post more photos and details about the visits to BMW, but that’s going to happen later, probably in a day or two, because right now it’s 1:20 am over here and I’m really tired after an exhausting day. Take hear and you’ll hear from us soon.
