I did the Masters Miata Club newsletter from 1998 until 2006 when I ran out of steam doing all the printing and the mailing. There was a person who said they would take over and then didn’t, followed by two others who wanted to give it a go, but didn’t have the knowledge to do it. The no newsletter was not a total loss because the interweb existed and I had been doing a webpage for the club for several years at that point.
BMW Plant Tour
Date: Friday, February 2, 2001
Time: 7:45 AM
Place: South Carolina Welcome Center
Members Attending: Bob Anderson, John Battles, Bill Baugh, Bonnie Baugh, Brian Bogardus, Donna Bogardus, Karen Breitinger, Kurt Breitinger, Jim Creer, Judy Creer, Lee Davis, Carol Haff, John Haff, Ron Kaufman, Jean Schwalbert, Russ Schwalbert, Stacey Timmerman and Rudy Wilmoth.
Guests Attending: John Nichols, Jeff Timmerman, Bob Taylor and John Wages.
We had a eleven cars, three with hard tops being early February, gather at the welcome center in the early morning cold, even Rudy had his top up! It was Stacey Timmerman’s job, with son Jeff navigating, to keep this many cars together on the trip. Amazingly enough, they did a fine job. We got on the Interstate for a few miles before heading north on back roads to our rest stop in Clinton, SC. Not long after getting on US 25 we picked up the first of two planned additions. John N. & Bob T. in a Merlot with a black hard top.
Just past the mid-point we pulled our caravan into a McDonalds for brunch. Here we picked up our second planned addition, Bob Anderson. Bob had thought he would meet us at the BMW plant, but got an earlier start so he just meet us here.
The rest of the trip was all Interstate, I-26 to I-385 to I-85. As we merged with I-85 near our destination, reports came from the back that a white Miata was passing our group. After passing about half of us, he must have figured we were on our way to have some fun, so he tucked in line.
As we pulled into the BMW parking lot we were now fourteen strong. Our late joiner was John Wages, Vice-president of the Foothills Miata Club. He was out running errands when he happened on our group. We offered him a spot on our tour, but he pleaded poverty, didn’t even have $5. We offered to pay his way in and he took us up on it.
We were about an hour or so early for our tour appointment, so this gave us plenty of time to check out the Zentrum, which I guess is German for a mix of museum, gift shop and snack bar. Lots of interesting variations of BMW production cars, race cars and motorcycles in the museum and all kinds of trinkets and clothing in the gift shop. A lot of us ended up in the snack bar, where you get a cold German beer to help pass the time until it was time for the plant tour.
The tour started with a 20 minute movie that showed you some places that you can’t actually go into in person. There were three screens, one in front and one on each side, and the movie was filmed from the point of view of a car chassis going through the welding of the body and all the painting process. Kind of neat to stand there and get painted red by robotic arms.
After the movie we then donned safety glasses to protect our eyes and headphones so we could hear our perky little tour guide. When they designed and laid out the plant it wasn’t with tours in mind, so we were just wandering around on the assembly floor, staying inside some painted yellow lines though, so as not to get run over by forklifts. There were actually two guides, one up front with the microphone talking and one in the back to make sure you didn’t wander off or try and put a Z3 tail light in your pocket.
We stopped and got to watch them mate a body to the powerplant subassembly (engine, transmission and front suspension) and it took about 2 minutes and 8 bolts. Like everything there it looked too easy, which I guess is a good thing, just not as exciting as I expected. The best part was the final test room where they take the nearly completed car and put it on a dyno-like rollers and shift through all the gears and do some heavy braking. Someone gets in the car and a computer tells them when to shift and brake. That same computer reads the data to see if it meets specs. We watched a white Z3 go through its paces and when it was driven out of the booth an employee reached down and picked up a couple stray bolts and a washer off the floor from underneath where the car was! I hope none of those were one of the 8 holding in the powerplant.
After the tour, most all of us went back one exit on I-85 to eat at a California Dreaming restaurant. Fortunately it was 2:30 PM on a weekday and after a little bit of rearranging, we were seated at a table for 22.
After eating, most all of us went back home. Four cars just went across the street to the Courtyard by Marriott to spend the night, so they could hook up with the Foothills folks in the AM.
North & South Drive
Date: Saturday, February 3, 2001
Time: 9:00 AM
Place: University Square Publix, Greenville, SC
Members Attending: Brian & Donna Bogardus, Karen & Kurt Breitinger, Carol & John Haff and Rudy Wilmoth.
Guests Attending: Sean, Jerry, Tony, Ron & Cat.
Brian figured we need to leave the hotel a little after 8 to make it to the starting point on time. This required an early rise, so we could eat, get checked out and get gas and be ready to go at 9 AM.
Conveniently located in the Publix shopping center is a McDonalds and this is where we parked while waiting. Ron Merrit was the first of the Foothills Club to show and Cat Thomson was the last, which, they said, is how things normally shake out on their runs. So our early rise was all in vain as these folks normally meet, eat and then drive. We finally got moving sometime after 10 AM.
And when we did, we got twisty. They took us on some roads that were only a few miles from the start that were totally awesome. It is almost enough to make you want to move to Greenville. After a circuit around the reservoir we headed up SC-11 and then cut up towards Caesar’s Head State Park. After a brief break in the park’s parking lot we went back to zooming around windy roads until we came Highlands, NC where we made ourselves at home in the Sagebrush Steak House for some grub.
After lunch we were all pretty much wore out, so we just headed back to Greenville and then on to Augusta. Fortunately, we couldn’t get home without traversing some very snaky roads.