Okay, here's the run-down on the Performance Centre Delivery Experience.
FUN ! ! ! ! !
I flew from Houston with a friend. She's listened to me talk about the M3 for almost six months...and since the European Delivery portion, she's mostly tuned out my voice when we saw another BMW. She had pretty much no opinion on performance vehicles....
...until PCD.
Thursday night arrived at GSP. Placed a telephone call to the Marriott and they said to look for a bronze X5 in about ten minutes. Warren picked us up within eight minutes, and whisked us to the hotel. He was knowledgeable about the next day and shared a bit of info.
Dinner at the hotel was quite good. I ordered a 6 oz. Filet Mignon; my friend ordered the "Low-Country Shrimp and Grits."
"What's that," you may ask? Jalapeno-cheddar grits, asparagus, tasso ham, & spicy red pepper aioli. I still don't know what that is. But my steak was great!
On Friday morning we had the complimentary breakfast buffet; and then stood around at the front door, all full of anticipation, and met three other couples going to the Performance Centre. We all hopped on a Marriott shuttle and in just about ten minutes we were let off at the front of the place of fun.
Our vehicles were NOT on display yet. Crafty staff, they are... hehe
We had about a twenty minute safety briefing and discussion, and introduction to our two primary driving instructors. (I am usually one of those people that are flawless at remembering names -- but I had a total FAIL here and am really embarrassed about it. :yikes: I think we had Ray and ....?.... as our instructors.
Then we went outside in the back and found the PC vehicles. We had a DCT M3 4-door, and I hopped inside. One couple had a Z4; there was an X5, and a 5-something. The people with the Z4 had a bit of a rough start -- she hadn't driven anything other than a manual transmission, and didn't know how to get the automatic Z4 going. After the instructor spent a moment, we zipped out after him.
They hang two-way radios in the door-panel which lets us listen to the instructors. It works quite well!
We went out to the ABS course and it was a little bit wet in that one stretch of pavement; otherwise we had approximately 73 degree weather, party cloudy, no breeze. PERFECT.
The instructor shows you heavy braking distances, and then we go drive.
Each person takes four runs at a path of cones that are straight for the first fifty feet, and then begin a gradual left-arc curve. The first speed was 30 mph (I think) and the M3 stopped in like 'nothing' distance. We watched the Z4, 5xx, and X5 go farther. Then I did 40 mph. Then 50. Then 55mph. In all cases, the M3 stopped prior to the curve, so I did not get to test the "you can/should steer when under heavy ABS braking." We watched the Z4 slide off into the dirt. And the 5-something did so also. That was because they were looking to the side of the road and not looking where they want to go (into the left curve). That was a technique the instructors repeated often -- put your eyes where you want the vehicle to go. And "9" and "3" positions. I do that anyhow, so it was easy.
My friend took the wheel, and she had
excellent stoppage, too, on her four ABS runs.
Then we went to the road course. Yeahhhhhh! :thumbup:
We followed the instructor for two laps.
There's a slalom set of about five cones, where the idea is to enter and maintain and exit at a consistent speed. Then apex turns, high corners, and a few elevation changes.
I kept catching up to the other vehicles, and twice pulled into the "pit" to let them get almost back around to me...and then caught up to them again. I did about ten laps...? The first three or four laps I was getting the hang of the track -- and then the last five I was mashing it. This was a total complete rockin' blast of fun. Wooo hooo.
Then we had to pit; and switched drivers again. My friend took over. (She's not a lightweight when it comes to cars -- but turns aren't her thing. She learned how to drive on a drag strip because her family built and raced cars for thirty years....but in a straight line...mostly.) She caught up to the other drivers a couple of times and got stuck behind them. It was a tiny bit disappointing because she didn't get as good a chance to kick-it into higher speeds as I did due to timing of the other drivers's vehicles. But she still had a blast.
Then it's off to the skid pad. It's a big concrete donut-shapped circle, with water sprinkler towers in the middle, and lighting poles, and about a forty-foot wide pavement; maybe fifty yards in diameter.
We hopped in a different car, a 5-something I guess, and the instructor sat in the right front. He turned off the DSC and DTC, and then get the left front tire on the yellow painted line. Then to mash the accelerator and let the car slide out. Which it did, circles, spinning, and wheeeeee! I did it again. Then we activated the DSC and I was able to keep the vehicle mostly on a semi-circle around the yellow line. Lots of noise of the systems keeping the vehicle under control!
My friend did the same maneuvers.
And it was there, I think, that she got a realization that BMW's are not
just cars. The safety features (in vehicle control, and then in crash protection) and technology began to win over her opinions of these highly-engineered vehicles.
Then we hopped in another car with the instructor for a "hot lap." O M G ! We went sliding, smoking tires, skidding, fish-tailing, whooo hooooo. I could do that all day long.
Finally, in a demonstration of skill, he did the skid-pad donut loop without DSC but keeping the left wheel on the center yellow line, then switching to the outside loop, and then back again. Cool.
And then we were done with the track. :wave:
Then we met James. We split up into two groups, and James gave each of the four of us an X5 to drive. We followed him down a hill, and then to the highway; about 1 mile to the X5 factory.
During the drive out, I was looking intently at the Heads Up Display when my friend, behind me, honked and pointed. My car was sitting in the front of the Performance Centre!!
Well...we pulled up on a side sidewalk and he said we could come back with our cars there later to take photographs. Then he led us inside the Museum and Shoppe, and we met Dagmar. Dagmar was our tour guide. Because it was fairly close to lunch-time in the plant, we went into rapid-walk mode so that we could view a number of key parts of the factory tour prior to lunch. I guess it was about 45 minutes in length to get through 4/5 of the tour, then for the last piece we took about fifteen minutes relaxed because the factory lunch break had begun. Dagmar answered all of our questions, she had good insights into the factory operations....it was a well-done tour! Now because I have worked in consulting in industry previously, I've been in about 100+ factories. But I'm always fascinated by the manufacturing process! My friend thoroughly enjoyed it because she had never been in a factory -- and this was all 100% new stuff.
We followed James back to the Performance Centre and we had complimentary lunch from the cafeteria. There were lots of other people there, taking other scheduled courses (I'm not sure which, but I think someone mentioned the Car Control course??).
Then we met James again out back, and we took the X5's onto the off-road course. The four of us followed-the-leader (James) over a buried log road, a deep-water ditch, then a steep ascent, then a turn-tight-on-the-mountain trek, and then a test of the Hill Descent Control thing, which works amazingly great.
Then we did a climb a hill slowly, and get the right-front and left-rear tires on the trail, but the other two tires floating-in-air-wobbly-thing. That was great. Finally, we did a left-thirty-degree bank driving, and a right thirty-degree bank driving deal. And finished at the back of the Performance Centre.
Then we met Willie. She was as nice in-person as others have posted about her. She led me to my M3 Cabriolet!
It had been super-cleaned and was beautiful ! ! ! !
(except for a fresh layer of yellow pollen, haha).
She did a brief walk-through of what had been done (took about five minutes) and then asked if I had questions.
I noticed it now had a full tank of gasoline, too!
We dropped the top, took a few pictures, and then drove back to the factory. There we got onto the official sidewalk, but I wanted pictures in the front of the place, too... so, I drove it on the sidewalk to the fountain/pool area. I guess it was okay, because nobody came out with a pitchfork to run us off. We snapped about six-thousand photographs.
We were done around 1:45pm, earlier than planned, so we drove around area towns and sites with the top-down. My friend had to be back at the airport by about 3:30pm; I dropped her off at GSP. (She had a meeting the next day and had to be back in Houston).
Then I drove east for an hour to meet a friend for dinner (from Charlotte).
There's more about the trip home through the Tail of the Dragon, which I'll write about later. (rain, closed-roads, detours, and general chaos).
I've done the European Delivery and the Performance Centre Delivery.
Wow. What a wonderful experience this has been!
Just fantastic!