In January 1969, I was but a wee little lad in the old country and my neighbor and I were really into cars. There was a French comic book called Michel Vaillant and we would spend hours devouring its pages and then trying to re-draw all the cool sports cars in it on our own.
That winter, he and I heard that BMW was introducing a new sports car. So we asked our parents if we could go to the Brussels Auto Show. We hopped on a few buses and headed straight for the BMW stand. And there is was: the brand new 2800cs. We salivated for a while and then my friend got an idea: They were offering test drives! So why don’t we see if we can get in. Needless to say they just laughed and sent us little kids packing right away. But at the end of the day we thought, before we leave, let’s give it another try. And low and behold, since all the “real“ customers had gone by that time, one of the employees said “All right, I have nothing else to do. Meet me in the parking lot, let’s go for a little drive”. That is a day I would never forget.
Forward many years later, I had moved to the US and I was finally able to act on my impulses. Over time, I bought 3 Tii’s, converted one of them into a race car which I ran with my good buddy Gary Ibusuki, imported one 1600 cabrio and, at last, in 1991 was able to buy my first coupe. I asked our friend Carl Nelson to do the 3.5 / 5 speed conversion and loved every minute of it. But by then we had two little kids with a third in the way and it was either keep the car or buy a house for them. Guess who won? But I always promised myself that after they all grew up I would return to my first passion.
So in 2015, I bought my second coupe. And this one is here to stay!
