Formula One - BMW Nil

My BMW Z3 on a fine day
Wet drive in prospect for Silverstone practice. BMW Z3 wiper blade shredded. Can I come to Soper, Lincoln main dealer, and have new ones fitted? Not till Tuesday. Nice lady suggested try Sytner, Nottingham, on your way to Silverstone. Gave me a phone number. Four calls and long waits listening to recorded advertising drivel about BMW and the Olympics. Gave up, called Formula One Autocentre, Lincoln. “We’ll fit new blades right away.” And they did. A lot cheaper than Soper would have on Tuesday. Convincing. BMW service always disappoints.

BMW X1

Road testing cars for The Motor used to be objective. “Put yourself in the mind of a buyer,” they told you. It wasn’t a bad rule, ignored now by self important hacks who tell you what they think. Their experience can be sketchy. Mine was once.

It’s not always easy pretending to be a buyer, so I am being one. I am shopping for a replacement for the Terrano. Not just yet maybe. I bought it because I thought it would last a long time. In 12 years it has only done 70,000 miles because it I mostly drive other people’s cars. It could last a lifetime. It has been the most reliable car I have ever had.

The Terrano may be noisy but it is strong. I got it to pull number two daughter’s horsebox. No longer a cute teenager, more a yummy mummy, she is very green. She and Adam will borrow it for a holiday. Grand-Teddy will be safer in the big Terrano than in their little Clio. It may not go with her greenery unless she counts it recycled, which saves the planet making another one.

While I am making up my mind I can test cars subjectively. I can be myself. No more mealy mouthed objectivity. Here’s what I really think. A BMW X1 would be nice. It would pair up with my Z3 (see above). UK X1s are all diesels, which is fine; I like diesels. And I would want an automatic that is agreeably smooth and quiet with plenty of torque for overtaking. So far so good. The X1’s accommodation is fine and in theory would fill the bill, but the cheapest is £23,000. Four wheel drive, Sat-nav and leather upholstery lifts it into 3-series territory close to £30,000. It has 3-series underpinnings although 1.5cm narrower, there is not much room in the back and not enough for the dogs in the boot.


I didn’t find the steering crisp enough and the ride is turbulent. The wheels bump thump into potholes and steep cambers throw it off course. The inside is gloomy. It may be good quality stuff but is a bit severe I do like some luxury trim.

You spend a long time looking at the facia and it may be businesslike and efficient but it’s dull. The X1 is well proportioned from the side but upright and abrupt in front.

Road performance is exemplary. The X1 whisks along quietly, the 6-speed gearbox shifts seamlessly, it does 45-50mpg, so the 61litre (13.4gallon) tank would take you half the length of the realm, which I like. So, the X1 is worthy but not, I think, for me. BMWs should have charisma and this hasn’t. I suppose I am really looking for an estate car, 4x4 not really necessary in Lincolnshire, good ride essential, road noise unacceptable, probably diesel automatic with space for two Labradors.

Hitler's Mille Miglia

BMW Car has done a good layout for my feature on The 1940 Mille Miglia BMW 328. This was the car that took part in what has, perhaps unkindly, been called Hitler’s Mille Miglia. It wasn’t. It was Mussolini’s. BMW Car has unearthed a poster for what the Italians called the First Gran Premio Brescia delle Millia Miglia. Maybe they changed the name because they thought the Germans might win. Which they duly did. Top: A Sunday Times column featuring the exquisite 2-seater I drove in 1993. No wonder Sir William (as he became) Lyons cribbed the style for the XK120. Below: I photographed the 328 in front of one of my favourite hotels, Turnberry, Ayrshire, where in 1952 I saw it win, driven by Gillie Tyrer. I was quite young and impressionable.

BMW Z3

Bad vibration at the front of the Z3. Sought advice at Soper, Lincoln BMW dealer.
“I think I have a brake grabbing. One wheel is hot and the steering shakes. It is just about undriveable.”
“You can book it in sir. I can’t spare anybody to look at it.”
“I am going to the dentist and then shopping.”
“You need to book it in sir.”
“I just want to find out what’s the matter with it.”
“You need to leave it. We have two technicians off sick. Nobody can look at it just now.
“I just paid a lot of money to have it serviced here a few weeks ago.”
“You need to book it in. I can get you a lift home.”
“I don’t want to go home I have an appointment at the dentist.”
He almost sighed: “He’s got an old Z3 and it doesn’t look very clean. He’ll go away in a minute.”
I did. I recall Sir Stirling Moss. When he drove for Mercedes-Benz, he said, they thought of everything. No detail was too small. If a driver wanted something done on his car it would be done. At once. Overnight. Or Naubauer would say no we tried that in 1937 and it didn’t work. When I took the 300CE-24, I had at The Sunday Times, to the Mercedes-Benz dealer in Bath nothing was too much trouble. It was like having a car looked after by a gentleman’s gentleman.

Four Wheel Steer

Four wheel steering has been reinvented for the BMW 5-series. Below 60kph (37mph) the rear wheels turn the opposite way to the fronts, making parking easier. Going faster they turn in the same direction, which makes the car turn in quicker. What Car? was lukewarm about “active” steering, although felt it had quite a profound effect. There was, “rarely a corner or roundabout that requires more than a quarter turn of the wheel. The 5-series remains utterly stable throughout. However we found that the car fitted with the standard electrically powered steering rack offered significantly more feedback, and although requiring a bit more arm-twirling more satisfying. We’d forgo the option of active steering.”

Nothing new about four wheel steering for cars. See my feature from The Sunday Times magazine of 8 December 1985. I liked Honda’s described in The Sunday Times column of 6 September 1987. Honda did a slalom test at the press launch I thought convincing.

BMW Z3 and Shoemakers' Bairns

Beyond starring in jokey thrillers, Cary Grant and Pierce Brosnan had not much in common, yet both made a sports car famous. In 'To Catch a Thief' (Hitchcock, Paramount, 1955) Grant and Grace Kelly raced through the Riviera in a Sunbeam Alpine. In 'Goldeneye' (United Artists 1995) Brosnan forsook James Bond's Aston Martin and pursued baddies in a BMW Z3.

Both had the underpinnings of production saloons, the Alpine the Sunbeam-Talbot 90, the Z3 the BMW Compact 318i. They had 'retro' styling. The Alpine was aimed at North America. Stirling Moss won Coupes des Alpes in it, yet production ones were not quite up to scratch as road-going sports cars. Triumph TR2s were faster, MGAs more precise, Austin-Healeys lower and racier. All borrowed bits from mass-production, TR from the Standard Vanguard, MG from BMC, Austin-Healey from the A90.

The BMW Z3 was not only aimed at North America, it was made in South Carolina. Quick, lively, it handled well, with a smooth-revving 4-cylinder in front, driving the rear wheels as a sports car's should. The recipe was right, it was well put together, and when I drove one in California, on a visit to the Pebble Beach concours, where streets seemed thronged with Ferraris, it drew admiring whoops of 'Nice car...'

The 4-cylinder was feeble but BMW already had plans for a six and I bought a 2 litre 6-cylinder. Was it a sports car or a born-again roadster like the Alpine? I suppose it is about as fast as an early XK120. It looked a thoroughbred. It was not large, the cockpit close-fitting, the boot big enough for a week-end. The hood was fine for 1996, folding away after undoing a couple of clips, it was draught-free although California may not have been the best place to try out its weatherproofing.

Mine had 2000 miles on the clock and it has been a delight. However, “Shoemakers’ bairns,” as the old saying has it, “Are aye the worst shod,” and it’s the same with motoring authors’ cars. They get neglected. My Z3 was deeply cherished by me but ill-served by BMW dealers. Up till now that is. Glasgow Giffnock's Harry Fairbairn was useless, expensive and inefficient. Visit after visit failed to cure trifling faults. And when the faults grew big, once out of warranty, the cost of fixing them was eye-watering. New brake callipers and discs were needed before 35,000 miles. They seized apparently through lack of use and corroded because, said Fairbairn, I lived near the sea. My Nissan Terrano and Ruth’s Ford Puma didn’t suffer but there you are.

There was paintwork trouble and a failed repaint. “You’ve got an adhesion problem,” said Fairbairn without a trace of irony. The new paint wasn’t adhering. Douglas Park in Glasgow was better, but now Soper of Lincoln look after it, I get a courtesy Ford Fiesta when it goes in for service and to have some neglected bits put right. The cost seems about right for a car that is still relatively low mileage and runs beautifully.