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.

Throttle Sticking

BMW Z4 Coupe on test I photographed at the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Art Lover's House, Glasgow.
What on earth was the unfortunate family killed in the Lexus doing, calling the emergency services on a mobile phone, saying we’re in a Lexus and the throttle has stuck open, before they were killed? Had nobody the presence of mind to shift into neutral, use the handbrake, do anything? “Hold on and pray,” the unfortunate Mark Saylor, an off-duty California highway patrolman, is reported as saying. Don’t they teach highway patrolmen to deal with emergencies?

Now The Times has gone sanctimonious over Toyota, rushing round like Private Fraser in Dad’s Army saying “Everybody’s in danger, we’re a’ doomed.”

The IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists) offers sounder advice on what to do with an engineering malfunction. Keep calm and carry on. Stephen Mead, Assistant Chief Examiner, says “Surprisingly the perception with a stuck accelerator is that the driver can’t brake either. This is a misconception brought on by panic. Press the brake firmly, then the clutch to disengage the power. In an automatic, drivers should brake, wait for a reaction and then put the car into neutral. You can still steer, so a stuck accelerator isn’t actually the disaster it sounds.”

Quite right. Let the engine rev its head off. “You will probably be in a state of shock, but if you remain calm you can avoid serious danger.”

Poor Toyota. Well, up to a point. It’s all very well saying that we have all had to deal with emergencies, like brake fade or a stuck throttle, at some time. But that is the experience of a million miles, maybe two million miles, talking. I could still drive out today into a crisis. Mustn’t be complacent.

I was once driving a test car on the twisty road alongside Loch Lomond. My nearest and dearest were on board, when I noticed a cloud of smoke in the rear view mirror. It went away. There were no alarming noises. Nothing was obviously wrong, until I braked and there it was again. A white cloud behind. I concluded that brake fluid was leaking on to the exhaust and in due course there would be none left. I drove on for about 30 miles up the A82, braking seldom, driving smoothly, slowing surreptitiously with the handbrake, until I figured out what to do. Nobody in the car noticed anything wrong. I eventually sought help at the AA box just north of Crianlarich. I could then explain to the family why we were stopping. I did not want to be stranded in the wilds.

Nobody was in danger and we completed the journey on a low loader. The AA box is long gone. Emergencies? I once put a rod through the side of a Chevrolet Sting Ray V8 doing maximum speed runs on the M1, at something like 130, still legal then. I destroyed a front wheel and tyre of a big Peugeot, on a rock at about the same speed, in Egypt. My regular driving companion, Michael Scarlett with whom I shared many an adventure, said a little stiffly I thought, “Don’t brake,” which I wasn’t. We came safely to a halt.

Two million miles? That’s 32,258 a year. Between the ages of 30 and 60 I was doing 40,000 a year on test and in my own cars, without accidents beyond minor traffic abrasions.
Dove Publishing is one of the sponsors of Scottish Car of the Year. Here Mike Roberts, Publishing Director presents a quiach to Ian Callum Jaguar design director, with Miss Scotland and me, editorial director