After I picked up the guys at the airport, and after we went to M-Studio, we returned to the BMW for a Haus Tour and a walk through the museum. Here are a couple photos from that:
We had a wonderful tour of the Welt by Caroline. We started the tour outside the public cafe on the main floor, near the auditorium. Here we were getting ready to start
As we walked across the floor to the first part of the tour, I saw this statue of an exhaust manifold and thought it was so cool. If any of you have ever tried to make one of these things, you'll appreciate what went into this piece!
Underneath the floor of the Welt is where all the cars are prepared and inspected before delivery to the waiting customers. This is some operation. They are currently delivering something like 70-80 cars a day, with a jump to around 160 cars a day in the near future. At full boogie they can deliver 270 cars a day! It doesn't sound that magnificent, until you realize what they do to prepare the car for you. I didn't get a great photo of it, but under here is a giant sort of vending machine, that is large enough to hold ~280 cars in a sealed, reduced oxygen room with robots to shelve and retrieve them! The robot is required becasue you can't work in a reduced oxygen enviornment, which was required to satisfy the Gov that 280 cars fueled and ready to drive won't go up in smoke! These are the photos I wish I has for you, I will try and get some out of the Architectual Book on the Welt that BMW gives you as part of the Delivery program. Pretty cool!
In the photos below are the areas where the cars are inspected and cleaned in the hours before the delivery. Cars begin to arrive at the Welt early each morning and just keep rolling in on trailers through the day.
Back on the main floor, this is the view from the Entrance looking INTO the Welt. You can see the AW 1M in the far right.
Looking up from the entrance you can see this "cloud" in the sky above. This is what the architect was hoping to create with the roof that weighs as much as 12 loaded Jumbo Jets, perched on 11 columns, most neatly built into the rest of the building, so as to make it feel like it's floating above you.
Alpine White, preproduction 1M on display
Near the end of the tour you will find yourself on part of a bridge that is inside the Welt, but leads outside and over the street to the BMW Museum. From this perch is where I saw the 1M promotion printed on the floor of the Welt, and its from here you can see the delivery area in the center of the building
Bye, Bye Caroline!
I'll post a couple photos from the museum, a bunch more from Nurburging and hopefully the Nurburgring video, which has been problematic, tomorrow night.