fbloogyudsr
f*** them. My position stands. When the sedan (vs the motyorcycle) hit the U.S. it was termed a "Beemer". The corruption to the f***ing brain-dead "Bimmer" happened many years later.
The car from its outset (the "1600" then the "2002") was an example of Teutonic genius. Expensive to maintain, but more stable than a Porsche of the 60s and long of reach in each gear (it strongly indicated you shift into fourth at 65 mph.). It looked like a granny-box and yet went around corners like it was on rails. It had brakes that when fully applied dragged ones cheeks forward in a reverse Stapp rocket-sled moment. Brembo prolly learned from BMW.
And it cost only a few hundred more than the VW Beetle.
=== I drove the living pee out of my first, a 1600, cross country and tossed it around in the coastal hills of northern California.
When it finally died it had over 200,000 miles on the clock; lots of maintenace costs, nothing Big (apparently this obtains today, though Mercedes owners are none to jeer, and the BMW is more fun!)
Most fun driving a car? 1) My two VW bugs. 2) my in-laws' 70 Porsche 911, 3) the original Beemer sedan, the 1600; John Christ we went from Ontario to California, four people and a Canadian-built cedar canoe-gift strapped on top to San Francisco, and had a safe and secure trip (and back) through some black-ice and other nuisances. Damn, the car was "nimble", and we always ended up in the direction appropriate with scarcely an intake of breath.
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I have driven the latest 311 (what the 1600 developed into) into Ontario cottage country recently and thirty years has only refined this machine. What a pleasure!
KRETP vs. Motor Vehicle ActJust to revive this thread; this was in this morning's Seattle PI Floyd ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Getting There: Law says left lanes are for pbutting only By JANE HADLEY SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER...
Pe