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Since this was my first ED, first M and first new car it was quite the trip for me. I am going to start with how I came about wanting/getting the car before the trip so bear with me please. I came from a '08 328xi and a '01 330xi before that. I am a huge BMW fanatic and will hope to always drive them, as long as they stay true to their roots. That is partly what influenced me in deciding to get the 1M. I felt that I could get a true classic before BMW's cars become oversized and start to lack any soul. I somewhat felt this way of my 328xi compared to my 330xi. In my opinion, the 328 was a better car but just lacked the fun factor. Luckily I was able to find this in the 1M. However, I think for all of us that bought 1M's, or are planning to, it was/is a bit of a gamble, or rather trust, in what BMW, M specifically, can deliver. I had never bought a new car let alone without driving one.

Build-up

My interest in the car originally came about last August or September. I followed it here on the forum from then on. I decided last November/December that this is the next car that I wanted (At that point I had no need for a new/newer car). I was thrilled with the reviews of the car by the people who drove the pre-production version, particularly M3 Adjuster's. I felt like this car would be the perfect size (I am single and have no kids) and in relatively the right performance area that I was looking for. After Christmas I went into the dealership (Wyoming Valley Motors) to put down a deposit for fear of not getting one if I did not (we all remember the limited production numbers discussion going on about then). Initially, they said I could not place a deposit but after two days they called me back and said I could.

This is where I would like to thank Maurice, or Maury, my CA and Dan, the SM, for helping me throughout the entire process. They were always accommodating and if they didn't know something they got back to me right away with what it was that I wanted to know. I highly recommend them to anyone doing an ED. In any case, my next big problem was what color to get. I pretty much knew that I wanted everything since this was going to be my daily driver. I was initially going with VO because it was going to be a limited edition for this car, at least at the time, and I thought it looked great in the pics. However, the more I looked at the pics the more I thought BSM would be better. Then, finally, before I had to decide for sure the BSM pics came out and my mind was made. It was unfortunate that I was unable to see the VO in person before making a decision but upon seeing it in late April at the NYC auto show I knew I made the right decision. (AW was always out of the question as my 328 was AW and I wanted something different and the VO was just too much for my tastes, I liked it but not everyday). So after signing all the paper work in early May all I had to do was wait to go pick it up.

Day 1 – Munich (BMW Welt)

As I was heading to Munich my anticipation grew. I was getting really excited as I was landing in Munich. I suppose you could say that it finally dawned on me that I was actually in Germany to pick up a car!! After meeting my family at the airport (we took separate flights to Munich) I got my first taste of BMW in Germany. From there we took the S-bahn and U-bahn to our hotel in Munich (we stayed at the Holiday Inn near the English tea gardens). The hotel was relatively nice and at a great price. It was about a 10 minute walk away from the U-bahn, which was the worst thing about it, and not too close to the down town area. I had to hurry everyone (my parents and brother) up because we had to make a 4:00 P.M. plant tour that I had reserved tickets for.

We ended up being a few moments late to the half hour pick up deadline so they gave two of our tickets away. My parents decided to hang out at Welt and let my brother and I go on the tour instead. We absolutely loved it. It was great to see how they build the cars and the process which is undertook to do so. I was bummed out that the assembly line still was unavailable to be seen since they are getting ready for the new F30 series production cycle. The cool part was to see all of the S65 M3 engines being built. There were hundreds in crates and on the production line. I just wanted to take one for the trip home jk lol. After the tour, we met up with my parents and walked around Welt for a bit. We ended up going back to the hotel to grab a bite to eat and call it a night because at this point we were up for over 30 hours at this point (none of us really slept much on the plane over)!!

Day 2 – Munich to Zurich

After a restful night’s sleep we headed over to the Welt again. I checked in around 11:45 A.M. which was relatively early considering my delivery time of 3:50 P.M. but I wanted to relax and enjoy the day. I was able to get tickets for my parents to go on the plant tour, which they enjoyed immensely. My brother and I went to the store to get my Welt key and spend my €10 gift certificate. I picked up a nice M t-shirt to go with the car. We also had a chance to explore a little more than the day before and see some of the displays. My parents got back from the tour and we all sat down to enjoy the some of the food and beverages in the waiting area. I have to say that it was quite good and thoroughly enjoyable.

At this point we noticed the car beneath us on one of the observation/elevator areas. I got extremely excited at the sight of it and was getting ever more impatient to get my hands on it. After meeting up with another ED delivery customer (Shawn) who I met on, er, that other forum (Bimmerfest, their ED wiki really is useful) we were able to chit-chat about our cars and what we planned to do on the trip to Germany. It was great to meet someone else over there to enjoy the experience with. By that time, it was my time to go.

We met Bernhard at the screen and walked down to the car. I was told at that point that this was the second 1M ED for the U.S. of A. and the first BSM too (the other being VO) for the U.S. I was pretty shocked at this but happy too. Bernhard told us that the spot in front of the corporate towers was reserved for special vehicles and/or customers, me being the former rather than the latter lol. After going through all of the information for the vehicle, there wasn’t much that I hadn’t obsessed over for the past nine months that I didn’t already know about, my mom told Bernhard and I that there was a small scratch on the rear bumper near one of the PDC circles. Bernhard apologized for this and was clearly upset at the sight of it. He was able to quickly rectify the situation downstairs with the detail department and we were off to the hotel to pick up the bags. I must say thanks to Bernhard and all of the other staff at Welt as they were extremely kind and courteous and made the overall experience a dream come true!

After getting a few more shots of the car outside Welt we proceeded to the hotel. It was great to finally be able to drive this thing after so long!! First thing I noticed was the great, great feel of the steering. I was totally blown away at the feedback from it. Unfortunately, we were stuck in city traffic so not a great way to start but oh well. The gearbox felt precise and shifted much shorter than my 330xi did. Third to fourth felt especially short to me for some reason. After getting to the hotel it was interesting to fit all of the bags for four and everyone in the car. Thanks to my parents for sitting in back with a small suitcase. They looked like some sardines in a can back there! As my brother and mom had to fly back to the U.S. the next day, we made our way to Zurich where their flight was scheduled to leave. First fill up cost €53, not too bad considering you are only supposed to get four gallons. So we make our way onto the Autobahn. At this point I was able to use up some more of the rev range and explore its characteristics. Let me tell you how unbelievably difficult it is to keep to the break-in requirements but keep to them I did. At this point I was thinking “HOLY TORQUE BATMAN!!!!” I have never experienced something with so much torque and at such a low rev range. This was truly the most surprising thing about the engine. Much of the trip on the Autobahn was spent doing short little blasts in different gears at 50-75% throttle to give the engine some load to help break it in. Driving it on a highway was not my ideal break-in but tomorrow I was planning on hitting up the Alps. Being my first time on the Autobahn it was really cool to see the unlimited speed sign (just unfortunate I could not partake in it!).

We ate at a small village near Lindau. It turned out to be interesting dinner since they didn’t take credit cards even though the iDrive said they did. Let this be a reminder to everyone to always ask beforehand. Luckily, we had enough euros on us and continued to Zurich. On the way, in Austria but before the Swiss border I noticed a set of BMW headlights behind me. It looked like the new 1 series lights with the eyebrow. Well as he got closer I realized it was an AW 1M!!!! What are the chances lol. I would like to have kept with you but with a car full of luggage and family plus it being the first day I had the car it was not ideal. But shout out to whoever that was. We arrive in Zurich seriously tired and hit the hay for a great day tomorrow.

Day 3 – Zurich to Milano/Lugano

After successfully dropping off my mom and brother at the airport, my dad and I start to head south towards Lugano/Milano, where we were planning on meeting up with my friend, Matt, in Lugano the next day. I call him about halfway down to find out some good driving roads in the Alps. He tells me to go to Andermatt, a popular ski village, and head west towards the Furkapass. Little did I know that these weren’t just good driving roads, they were the roads I have always dreamed of, seriously. I cannot think of any other road that I have driven on better than these. I mean up one side of a mountain and down the other. This turned out to be a bit of a problem for my dad as he is not good with heights (ironic being that he is a former airline pilot lol). In his defense, there really was not much separating you from the road and a couple thousand meter/foot drop. But I wasn’t driving 10/10’s… more like 6/10’s. That still was not cool with him so I would occasionally have some fun then back off.

This is where I first tried that little M button. Wow, if I thought that this engine was good yesterday, then it was great today. Throttle response is near instantaneous. But sometimes this is not good like when coming out of steep, sharp hairpins. I triggered the DTC a few times and kept switching back and forth between M mode and non-M mode. We did this for about two hours slowly making our way towards Lugano on back roads. At the height of the pass the temps got down to 43°F and there was snow!!! I even got to see some edelweiss! After getting to the Italian border, we were stopped to make sure we had the correct papers. The guard told me that “this car is all the rage in Italia now.” And I have to say it really was everywhere we went. Whether we were at gas stations or in parking lots for restaurants or on the highways people were always looking and pointing at it. When we went to the Nurburgring was when the real crowds gawked. That night we had a great Italian dinner and slept as hard as rocks again.

Day 4 – Lake Como/Lugano to Luxembourg

In the morning we headed over towards Lake Como, something that I have always wanted to see. After stopping there to take some pictures and take in the scenery, far too short of a time in my opinion, we were headed to Lugano to see my friend Matt. This was a great time as I haven’t seen him in 2 ½ years. We were able to catch up over some espresso, gelato, and fresca (I think that’s what it was… the Italian sparkling wine). He had an excellent view of Lake Lugano and the surrounding mountains. As before, we had too short amount of time but at least it was great while it lasted.

This is where we embarked on the longest part of our journey to Luxembourg. This had us stopping in Basel for dinner where I met someone at a gas station who had an E30 M3 and an E92 M3, which he had wrecked the latter recently. It was cool to talk to them (in my broken French lol) about the 1M. Passing through all of the tunnels in Switzerland was going to be a sad parting for me as I would miss the opportunity to roll down the windows and listen to that awesome melody that the exhaust and engine would make. No there wasn’t any drone to my recollection and I thought that all of the exhaust clips that I had seen/heard thus far did the car no justice. This is probably attributed to the fact it is just better in person but for me the exhaust sounds really good. I certainly got addicted to dropping down a gear or two and accelerating. I am sure that I might want to upgrade it someday though. We finally made it to Luxembourg, tired as ever on the trip, at the wee hour of 3 A.M.

Day 5 – Luxembourg to Dusseldorf via Nurburg

We woke up a bit late the next day, obviously, and went into downtown Luxembourg to check it out. It was a cool little city that I wish we had more time to see but the most important part of the trip lie ahead for me. The Nurburgring. On the way there we stopped at some waterfalls in Luxembourg called Mullenthral. It was pretty neat to see and we found some great driving roads going there and on the way to the Nurburgring.

Finally we got to the Nurburgring and wow. It is just huge compared to what I thought it would be. I guess it makes sense when there is a GP circuit and the Nordschleife. We make our way over to the Nordschleife entrance and start to wait. The track was supposed to open at 5:00 P.M. but didn’t till 5:30ish. In the mean time, my dad and I walked around to check out the other cool machinery. When I came back to the car there about 5-8 people standing around it talking and taking pictures. We chatted it up and a few were from the U.K. with some E30’s!! It was pretty cool to talk to them and we parted ways for the track. If you ever want to go to an exotic car show just go to the Nurburgring. There is GT3 after GT3 and 458’s and everything else you could possibly imagine from modded Nissan’s to Renault’s, etc. It was a very cool experience. Finally, we got out onto the track. I posted a semi complete lap, my second one, on YouTube with the video here; there are two parts since my dad had trouble with the camera and a slight break between the two approximately 30-35 seconds in my estimates. I apologize for the wind noise, as the windows were open, and my dad talking lol. This was no record breaking lap but I had a great time driving the track and it was a dream come true to drive it. As far as the track, holy crap.

No video game or video, no matter how many times (believe me I watched and practiced a lot) can prepare you for the track in real life. The corners are much sharper, elevation change more drastic (I kind of expected this one from my previous track experience) and the blind corners are… well much blinder lol (on the one lap I saw a Cayman S almost lose it on one such corner after getting up onto kerbing on the exit that he wasn’t supposed to). On the first lap someone had wrecked pretty badly so the police had to come out and clean it up. Luckily it was taken care of relatively quickly. However, this worked to my advantage, as I would soon find out, as there was a short break (15-20 minutes) which caused all of the cars to stop on the long straight.

A couple of people started to gather around the car again. We started to talk about things and the one fellow said that he was thinking about getting a 1M. He said he had an E46 M3 CSL, which I had failed to notice sitting about 30 meters away from us. I told him my impressions of the car and that this was my first time to the track. He then said “Oh, well I’ll take you around for a proper lap if you’d like. I’ve probably been around here about a thousand times or so and come down once a month to drive the car.” How could I refuse?!?! So we agreed to meet up in the paddock after the track opened up again and we went around for this next lap. After my second lap we met up in the paddock and we went around for the last lap of the day at this point. I could not believe that I was going around the Nurburgring in an E46 M3 CSL, one of my favorite cars of all time and a truly great track. You just can not write this stuff.

As a side note, this is why I love cars, we all share a common bond for something that allows people of all types to come together and have a great time. At the end of the day it does not matter what you drive just as long as you have fun, in my opinion. It was a little weird for me as, Justin, the E46 M3 CSL bloke from Belfast, Northern Ireland, had the right hand drive version but still great fun nonetheless.

Now to that lap: HOLY CRAP!!! What an experience!!!!! I could not/cannot thank him enough for taking me around. It was truly amazing to see/feel what a proper lap around the Nurburgring was like. We got slowed up by traffic a few times during the lap but otherwise it was quite spectacular. Only one car passed us, to Justin’s dismay, which was a seriously modded E30 M3 (probably big ol’ turbo) at the end of the lap.

While waiting to exit we started talking about stuff in the area and he told me to go to the Pistenklausen, Sabine Schmidt’s family restaurant. I had read about it but could not remember the name of it until then. Luckily, meeting Justin had proved doubly useful. My dad and I parted ways with Justin and his friend, Nigel, and went on to Pistenklausen. This place was just as cool as the track with all of the memorabilia on the walls. Also if you have not heard of this place or Sabine Schmidt (google her lol), they offer meals that you can cook on seriously hot stones (500°F I would guess) at your table. I had the filletsteak with French fries which was awesome. This just added to the experience. We met an interesting couple next to us and the guy’s older brother (unfortunately their names escape me) who now lives/works in Baltimore. He is an amateur SCCA racer over here and we had some interesting talks about racing, cars, etc. Apparently, he wrecked his younger brother’s Porsche C4S the previous weekend while at the ring. Surprisingly, his younger brother appeared to have gotten over it even though he spun it backwards into a barrier/Armco (ouch!). After showing, them the car we made our way up towards Dusseldorf for the night.

Day 6 – Dusseldorf to Mainz via Kirpen and Remagen

So we ended up relaxing at the hotel in the morning/early afternoon. We watched Spanish GP in the afternoon on the BBC (wow this is a lot better than Speed lol, what have I been missing). We then made our way to Kirpen, which is significant, if you know that Michael Schumacher’s kartbahn is there. We decided to go for the outside track. My dad had been there before so this was all new to me but I quickly learned the track and was second from the top of the time sheet by the end of the session (all 215 lbs. of me, which is pretty good considering there were kids probably 75 lbs. less than me). I raced two more times and my dad once more. It was another great part of the trip. After this we made our way down to the town of Remagen to see what was left of the famous bridge there (google Bridge of Remagen if you do not know what I mean). My dad wanted to see it so I said why not. It was interesting to see the craters in the stone from the artillery/tank shells, etc. After this we made our way to Mainz for our last night in Germany.

Day 7 Drop – off (Frankfurt)

After dropping my dad off at the airport in Frankfurt I went off to find a car wash before dropping off the car. I ended up washing the car twice because of all the bugs on the front of it (they didn’t like to come off too easily). After that was done, I dropped off the car at E.H. Harms and took a taxi to the airport. The taxi ended up costing me more than expected (the taxi driver took a longer way than needed). From there it was just a nice trip home and a long wait for the car.

Impressions from the Trip

Overall, it was a dream come true. I could not have had a better trip. It would be difficult to pinpoint a highlight for the trip as there were so many. I would say the Nurburgring and meeting my friend Matt were at the top of the list followed closely by Welt and the driving through the Alps. I highly recommend that you do an ED if you have not already. It truly was the experience of a lifetime.

Impressions from the Car

This is what I am sure everyone wants to hear about. Overall, the car is great a ton of fun. It is definitely the best/most fun car I have ever had. It is civil when you need it to be but ready to jump at a moments notice. The engine has loads and loads of torque and at a really low rev range. This will encourage some people not to shift as much but that lacks the fun factor. If anything is bad about the engine I would like the torque curve to start a little higher up the rev range but it is not a big deal. I have to say that I also did notice some turbo lag albeit just a fraction of a second. However, this is coming from someone who has only had NA engines and not any turbo cars. The M button really does change the engine characteristics for the better (and take car of the turbo lag in my opinion). This is definitely not something to use when everyone is in the car as their headsd will jerk if you even give it 50% throttle. It might also be bad if you do not want the throttle to be as touchy as Dan Parker has said recently. I think the car is quicker with it engaged though so it will just take some getting used to modulating the throttle with all of that torque down low.

The MDM mode, which I tried on the ring on my second lap, definitely interferes less when coming out of corners. I did not experience anything that unsettled me when I encountered a little oversteer. I noticed that you get a little bit of entry understeer then by mid corner it is neutral and by exit you have a tendency for oversteer. However, this is on a track that I was not pushing hard and I did not really know so I will just have to wait and see until I am in a more comfortable situation. The other thing that surprised me about this car was amount of grip that it has. It can just pull so much grip in turns compared to many other cars I have driven. It is confidence inspiring.

The brakes are excellent as well. I never even got close to using all of their potential and would like to explore them more when I do some track days when the car comes here. Also as I said before I think the exhaust is perfect. Its not too loud but definitely noticeable with the windows up or down. It certainly was addicting.

The gearbox is excellent and precise and there is not much I would want to change about it if anything at all. The steering is amazing. It provides tons of feed back so you know exactly what is going on.

The suspension is firm but provides excellent feedback on the road. The worst roads I drove on were in Italy. This is probably realistic for back home. While you could definitely feel the bumps and ridges in the road, the suspension always felt composed. It does not like bumps, etc. but it can handle them.

I love the exterior styling and BSM on it (just my opinion). I think the interior is a little sparse like others have said but I was more or less focused on other senses than that of the viewpoint from the interior. I think the rest of the car more than makes up for it.

Overall, I am very happy with the car and would buy it again if I had to do it all over. I think that the chassis characteristics more than make up for any lack of the engine, which there is very little. The car just begs to be tossed around and it really is a blast to drive. Now comes the very hard part for me just waiting till it comes over here. I track it everyday on the shipping websites and hope to have it by July 4th at the latest. This weekend will make the waiting go by a little quicker as I am going to my first Formula 1 race in Canada!! Woot, Woot!! Also I would have like to have gotten this up earlier but due to lack of time and trying to get all of the photos compiled it proved to be quite the task. I will try to respond to anything after this weekend.

Cheers!!