My first German car was not the BMW but the VW (bug) a hand-me-down shared with my twin as we headed off to college in ’74. Just before college I saw my first ’02 and was impressed, I thought “I was going to buy one of those as soon as I could”. I met a future roommate in line buying ski tickets and he gave me a ride to Tahoe in his 1600; and I confirmed my BMW appreciation when I saw a 2800cs and a Bavaria enroute!
A few years later (which was two years prior to buying my coupe) I bought a 1972 2002 near Edam Netherlands, drove south then east through Deutschland over to the “Iron Curtain” Prague and Pills down to Vienna over to more “Curtain countries” to Budapest past Lake Balaton down to Beograde then south to Thessalonica (fuel pump issue caused me to tear it apart to clean the screen during a lunch stop) down to Mount Olympus then Volos and south to Athena… then back north through Macedonia and Meteora up and over to costal Yugoslavia Dubrovnik up to Trieste then up the Alps back into Germany before the Rotterdam port. What a trip, some great roads, and what an idea…fly to Europe to see the world, buy a car and bring it home to pay for the trip (previously did this between Utah and California, market price differential allowed the car to pay for the ski trip)…but kept the ’02 for 250,000km then sold it, the first of many trips and German cars…
At the age of 27, in 1983 I bought my only coupe (3.0CSi) from the original owner outside of Aussen. I drove it through Baden Baden and the Schwartzwald, to Neuschwanstein and east to Bavaria’s Munchen and Salzburg up the mountains to Innsbruck over to Interlaken to Basel to Colmar, then to Heidelberg, Koblenz, and Treir then on the final leg to Rotterdam prior to shipping it home to the Port of San Francisco and ultimately to Davis, CA…How many km’s…priceless??? In California my longest drive was from Davis to Laguna Beach and back, nothing as long as my first trip. Now nearly 30 years later…where to go next in my only coupe???
At 54...The road not traveled is opportunity yet to come; anyone up for a “ride”???