# Fotos - shortly after pickup in München!



## sponge_worthy (May 10, 2006)

Jspira said:


> Uh, these were 13".
> 
> And these were the Sport package wheels!


Makes me wonder... How much bigger are rims going to get, given the trend..?

Are these the wheels of the future?


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## dencoop (Aug 17, 2005)

I need more input....I want to see the rest of the cars.....:bigpimp:


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## JSpira (Oct 21, 2002)

dencoop said:


> I need more input....I want to see the rest of the cars.....


What time will you be here to start feeding 10.000 slides into the scanner?:rofl:


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## Finamir (Apr 29, 2006)

Interesting- I didn't realize the yellow lights was a French thing (and I will refrain from making a french joke with the word yellow)! :bigpimp:

I always loved the headlight wipers on the older european bmws. Hmmmm, maybe time to drill some holes under my xi's lights!

btw, the 530i sport is timeless!



Jspira said:


> Thanks Fin. :thumbup:
> 
> You don't know how many times I thought about retrofitting the wipers!
> 
> Re the yellow lights, since I was in Germany, not France, it would have looked out of place.


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## sponge_worthy (May 10, 2006)

Finamir said:


> Interesting- I didn't realize the yellow lights was a French thing *(and I will refrain from making a french joke with the word yellow)! *:bigpimp:


But you just did... :rofl:


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## adc (Apr 1, 2003)

Jspira said:


> Without the options (I had the S package), the list price U.S. was $13,200 or so; Euro. Delivery was $10,700.


Wowee - that's some 20% less for ED, a lot more than today... I know you mentioned that BMW is keen to continue with the ED savings program, but I wonder if the savings will decrease over time as they have apparently done in the past.

adc
03 330 ZHP
05 X3 3.0 ED


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## JSpira (Oct 21, 2002)

sponge_worthy said:


> J. -
> 
> Whats with the 14-inch rims? You didn't want to spend the extra cash for the 15-inch Sport Wheels...ya cheap basta'd..


One thing I should have mentioned is that the front airdam/spoiler as well as the catalytic converter were not supplied in Munich. They were installed at the port.


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## JSpira (Oct 21, 2002)

adc said:


> Wowee - that's some 20% less for ED, a lot more than today... I know you mentioned that BMW is keen to continue with the ED savings program, but I wonder if the savings will decrease over time as they have apparently done in the past.
> 
> adc
> 03 330 ZHP
> 05 X3 3.0 ED


And I also received a DM 25,- voucher for a taxi!

The DM was weak against the dollar at the time - that might have had an impact on the savings.


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## adc (Apr 1, 2003)

Jspira said:


> And I also received a DM 25,- voucher for a taxi!


That's OK, to make up for that apparently, BMW now gives a travel clock and a breakfast voucher... :rofl:

adc
03 330 ZHP
05 X3 3.0 ED


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## JSpira (Oct 21, 2002)

adc said:


> That's OK, to make up for that apparently, BMW now gives a travel clock and a breakfast voucher...
> 
> adc
> 03 330 ZHP
> 05 X3 3.0 ED


Oh, I got a decent food voucher also. No gift, but a really nice heavy vinyl binder (better than the cardboard of today). I still have it somewhere.


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## sponge_worthy (May 10, 2006)

Jspira said:


> One thing I should have mentioned is that the front airdam/spoiler as well as the *catalytic converter were not supplied in Munich*. They were installed at the port.


I remember that, my father did an ED in the 1980s of a 5er, he said the Check Engine light came on immediately at the delivery center - but they told him it was because theres was no catalytic converter in the car yet, but the computer was programmed as if there was one...


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## roup1 (Dec 24, 2001)

Here a couple of shots of my first ED. It was July 1999 and I was picking up a 2000 323i sedan. At that time EDs were picked up at the main BMW Niederlassung (factory owned dealership) on FrankfurterRing. My friend John and I were each picking up cars. On the day that I was picking up my car, it was mistakenly shipped to what is now the current ED center in Freimann. John picked up his car at the Niederlassung and I had to go Freimann to pick mine up after closing (they needed extra time to prepare the car). At that time, this facility was only used for employee deliveries. It was kind of special to pick up at Freimann since they really didn't have the facility set up yet to ED. You can see pics of Bernhard delivering John's car at FrankfurterRing and then handing over my keys at Freimann ! He's performed every one of my EDs since...


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## mdsbuc (Mar 17, 2005)

Jspira, thanks for the golden oldies. Sure wish that I had been a bimmer guy way back then. Better late than never though. :thumbup:


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## JSpira (Oct 21, 2002)

roup1 said:


> Here a couple of shots of my first ED. It was July 1999 and I was picking up a 2000 323i sedan. At that time EDs were picked up at the main BMW Niederlassung (factory owned dealership) on FrankfurterRing. My friend John and I were each picking up cars. On the day that I was picking up my car, it was mistakenly shipped to what is now the current ED center in Freimann. John picked up his car at the Niederlassung and I had to go Freimann to pick mine up after closing (they needed extra time to prepare the car). At that time, this facility was only used for employee deliveries. It was kind of special to pick up at Freimann since they really didn't have the facility set up yet to ED. You can see pics of Bernhard delivering John's car at FrankfurterRing and then handing over my keys at Freimann ! He's performed every one of my EDs since...


Great Fotos. One clarification: it was not a question of the facility in Freimann not yet being set up for European Tourist Delivery as Freimann was used for deliveries before and after yours. Your delivery just happened to be in a period during which the deliveries had been moved to the Dealership. Doesn't surprise me that the car ended up in the wrong place!


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## JSpira (Oct 21, 2002)

mdsbuc said:


> Jspira, thanks for the golden oldies. Sure wish that I had been a bimmer guy way back then. Better late than never though.


You're welcome - better late than never :angel:

The car in the pictures was my 2nd BMW - the first was a German-spec. 320 6-cylinder.


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## Agni (Jan 12, 2005)

Lol 1982? i wasnt even born for another 6 years.  

Its good that BMW sticks to its tradition and still offers this service, and i hope to soon take advantage of it. Hopefully in a few years by which time BMW Welt will be open.


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## john lance (Oct 15, 2005)

*ED Old-Times*



adc said:


> Wowee - that's some 20% less for ED, a lot more than today... I know you mentioned that BMW is keen to continue with the ED savings program, but I wonder if the savings will decrease over time as they have apparently done in the past.
> 
> adc
> 03 330 ZHP
> 05 X3 3.0 ED


In the 1970's and 1980's 20% up to even 30% or so was the regular saving that could be made by people from the US - and even more so by people from the UK - when buying BMWs in Germany. The vehicles could be collected from either the Freimann delivery center or else from a dealership anywhere in the country. That latter was the norm if the car was ordered at a dealership, if you wanted to collect in Munich it had to be specially requested.

These kind of savings were of course not welcomed by the home-country dealerships and there were many individuals, like myself, who set up in the business of importing cars, undercutting and very often selling to the local dealerships, who could make more money out of buying one of these "grey imports" than selling one of their own allocation! I and many others doing this were eventually blacklisted by BMW and had our names distributed to all the dealerships in Germany. Of course, we then ordered in different names and so the cat and mouse game continued....

I have many favorite memories of all of this but one of the more fun runs was collecting five M1's in one go from a German dealership and driving them in convoy back to the UK. They then all went to official BMW dealers there who otherwise did not have any allocation given to them. Oh, how I now wish I had kept one for myself! Then there was the Z-1 era when they were first introduced and in such huge demand. Then, as it became more difficult buying from German dealerships, groups of us used to fly out to other countries, particularly Cyprus in the Eastern Mediterranean, and take delivery there, then driving the cars (via 2-day ferry trips via Athens to Italy) back up through Europe, sometimes passing by the very BMW and Mercedes factories where the cars were "born" a few months previously and eventually back to the UK completing a journey of several thousand miles. Even after paying all the expenses involved with that the cars could still be sold at a profit to the BMW dealers in the UK!

The ED arrangements for the USA were introduced I believe to combat this ever-increasing problem for the domestic distributors. The new arrangement practically forced buyers to go down the official route provided by BMW, telling buyers they had no alternative (which, actually, they did). In Europe, BMW (Mercedes, Ford, VW and many other car-makers too) were ordered by the European Union commission on many occasions during the 1980's and 1990's to align their prices so that they were almost the same across Europe. At one time, around 1979, thanks to exchange rates, Renault and Jaguar cars could be bought in Denmark at 40% less than the prices in the UK (counting in all taxes and also the supplements for optional extras maybe not included in the Danish prices but included in the UK prices).

Those were the days my friends!


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## JSpira (Oct 21, 2002)

John, as far as I know, BMW is still struggling with regional disparities in pricing. I just cannot cite the particulars off hand.

Regarding factory delivery, once BMW NA took over and formalized the European Delivery program - as opposed to the somewhat ad hoc nature that existed when one could order from a variety of agents etc. - delivery in Freimann became standard. I don´t know the exact timepoint (neither does BMW for that matter), but delivery in Freimann was already the norm in 1981 and 1982.


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