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07-05-2015, 05:40 PM | #1 |
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Photos from the BMW Canada's Epic M European Tour 2015 (updated w/ pics + BMW video)
Featured on BIMMERPOST.com These are the thoughts of all of us who were lucky enough to participate Here's how it started for reference. 6 Days, 6 Countries from Munich to Monaco. If you've not seen the original post, take a look at how the offer and then the anticipation built. To say the least it was a very long 4 months!! http://f80.bimmerpost.com/forums/sho....php?t=1098254 Our M3's/4's were Individual Launch Editions and as such, fully equipped with every M3/4 option available including Individual Paint, Individual Full Leather Merino Interiors, CCB's and a complete suite of Carbon Fibre M-Performance pieces along with the icing on the cake...the M-Performance exhaust. All of these options were factory installed in Germany. Very slick. Bottom line is that each of us took care of the vehicle purchase, BMW took care of absolutely EVERYTHING else. Incredible!! Before posting any more pics and stories, a big shout out is due for BMW Canada and BMW ///M Gmbh who put all of this together. It was just absolutely brilliant from start to finish and we are all very much appreciative of the passion and professionalism that this company stands for - both in terms of their cars and their customers. None of us could've asked for more and it's no wonder that per capita, Canada is the #1 ///M market in the world!! Our sincere thanks to Matthew Wilson, Manager Product Planning BMW Canada, Kevin Marcotte, Director of Marketing BMW Canada, Joerg Bartels, Area Manager BMW M Gmbh North and South America, Nikolas Schuenemann, Junior Area Manager BMW M Gmbh North and South America and Manuel Eisel, Area Management Intern BMW M Gmbh North and South America. Just can't say enough about this team except one more "thanks" from everyone!! Here they are, from left to right...Joerg, Manuel, Nikolas, Matt and Kevin. Onto the pics now! My family started off with flying from YVR to FRA and then catching the ICE train to Nuremberg to tour the city. Last edited by Mario_Kart; 07-07-2015 at 11:32 AM.. |
07-05-2015, 05:41 PM | #2 |
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Day 1
Then the next stop would be Munich. We dropped our baggage off at the Bayerscher Hof and then spent the day at the BMW museum. Then later in the evening the tour officially started off with a cocktail reception and dinner at the hotel. Day2 The next day we headed over the BMW Welt for the factory tour (no pictures allowed), followed by the BMW driving academy in the afternoon. Last edited by Mario_Kart; 07-05-2015 at 06:33 PM.. |
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07-05-2015, 05:42 PM | #3 |
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Day 3
This was by far the most exciting day of the trip. We got up early and packed all our belongings onto the tour bus and headed to the welt for the big delivery of our cars. After delivery, we had lunch at the welt and then started our journey south where we would stay at the Interalpen Hotel in Seefeld, Austria Last edited by Mario_Kart; 07-05-2015 at 07:11 PM.. |
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07-05-2015, 05:42 PM | #4 |
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Day 4
Today we are headed up to Stelvio Pass with a lunch break in beautiful St. Moritz, Switzerland. After the long drive we were to arrive at Hotel Castello del Sole in Ascona, Switzerland. Day 5 We departed in the morning for Rapallo, Italy where we stayed at the Excelsior Palace Hotel. For lunch the guys at BMW chartered a boat to take us to Portofino for lunch. Later in the evening we had a 5 course dinner at the hotel. Last edited by Mario_Kart; 07-05-2015 at 07:56 PM.. |
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07-05-2015, 05:43 PM | #5 |
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Day 6
Today is the last day of the trip. Most of us opted to do a scenic drive that takes us onto an old rally road. We arrived at Fairmont Monte Carlo in the afternoon and had some time to walk around. Later in the evening, it was our farewell dinner and a poolside party to finish off the trip. Last edited by Mario_Kart; 07-05-2015 at 08:30 PM.. |
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07-05-2015, 05:44 PM | #6 |
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After the tour ended, I continued my trip to Lucerne, Switzerland for a night and then onto Stuttgart, Germany where we visited the Porsche museum and I had my car serviced by the BMW dealership there. After getting the break in service completed, I continued onto the Nurburing and then finally dropping off my car in Frankfurt.
Last edited by Mario_Kart; 07-05-2015 at 09:55 PM.. |
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07-05-2015, 06:29 PM | #8 |
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I will start by saying I'm not so good at writing and at the same time the pics are pretty much self-explanatory.
I was very lucky to be chosen one of the 15 people who went on this trip. Great car, great food, and great drive! Can't say this enough, but special thanks to Matthew Wilson and Kevin Marcotte from BMW Canada. - Joerg Bartels, Nikolas Schuenemann and Manuel Eisel from BMW M in Germany And all the friends and families who share this great memory with me. I made some new friends on this trip whom I miss everyday! Getting Ready for the trip! Day 1 I flew on Lufthansa from YVR to MUC. While roaming at the airport, look what I found! That's ought to be some good scotch! Old A330-300, overall good service. Munich is indeed very beautiful To my surprise, Michael from BMW picked me up instead of someone from Sixt. Very shy fella yet very passionate about BMW cars. And yes, that's a brand new X6 50i! First few nights in Munich is at Bayerischer HOF. A great choice, BMW Canada! According to their staff, every room in that hotel is unique, and someone at our group got an elephant room. LOL View from my room And of course the first thing I did is.....BEER!! And a quick visit to Hofbrauhaus, as always, packed! Day 2 It's about time to visit the WELT for the first time, and some museum time! The two color choices of X5M and X6M are very stunning in real person. I just love them both! And you know this trip is all about "INDIVIDUAL" The WELT is really an amazing facility And now, some Museum time! And that concludes day 2! Last edited by firevincen; 07-06-2015 at 01:13 PM.. |
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07-05-2015, 06:51 PM | #9 |
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Day 3 Factory Tour and Driving Experience
The itinerary with BMW Canada officially begins with a detailed factory tour in the morning and tailored driving experience at Maisach in the afternoon. (Some are official images from BMW) I was really impressed by how the factory runs itself using automation and robotics. Also how passionate their employees are. Apparently all of them is a big fan of the brand. Now enough of education time, and time to spin some wheels! That's me sitting at the passenger seat getting educated about drifting. LOL Last edited by firevincen; 07-06-2015 at 01:27 PM.. |
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07-05-2015, 06:52 PM | #10 |
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Day 4 Big Delivery Day!
It's pretty busy for deliveries of 15 cars at the same time! My baby!!!! At last!!!!! After almost three months of waiting! Doing the lap! Some Creme Brulee after the delivery!!! Two frozen whites outside WELT Then off we go, to our first destination, Interalpen Hotel Tyrol in Austria. Actually I missed the turn and made a pit stop at the Kochelsee This hotel is my favorite in this trip! I would come back again and again here. You can't beat the drive-in reception. Day 5 Stelvio Pass! Stop at Lago di Resia Look at the Tanzanite Blue under the sun! Doing the Stelvio! Lunch at St. Moritz! Check-in Ascona! Day 6 First thing is a morning wash! Portofino! What a beautiful town! Pasta time! Gelato Time! View from Excelsior Palace Last edited by firevincen; 07-06-2015 at 06:31 PM.. |
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07-05-2015, 07:24 PM | #11 |
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Final Day Monte Carlo!
Getting ready for our final drive to Monaco They seem to like my color best Once again, big thumbs up to these guys. First Left to right: Joerg Bartels, Manuel Eisel and Nikolas Schuenemann from BMW M. Matthew Wilson and Kevin Marcotte from BMW Canada. Last edited by firevincen; 07-06-2015 at 06:41 PM.. |
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07-05-2015, 07:52 PM | #12 |
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Photos BMW Canada's Epic 2015 M3/M4 Tour - 200 New Pics Added
Hello ///M enthusiasts. Between June 21st and June 27th, 2015 BMW Canada and BMW M Division brought 15 very fortunate M3/M4 owners and their friends, partners, families to Munich...and then 5 more countries... for the most epic Euro Delivery experience ever!! Here's my contribution to what can only be described as "the ultimate". It's written on behalf of everyone who was lucky enough to get in on this trip of a lifetime, including board members VCP, Schnell325, Mario_Kart, Ragged Edge, firevincen, Burton911 and myself. The others will join in soon and we'll harass them until they do lol. On to the tour!! This is a really quick overview without lots and lots of detail. Everyone on the trip will be jumping in with their own stories and many, many more pics so bear with us. All of us arrived in Europe the week of the 15th of June with arrangements to formally check into our first hotel, the Bayerischer Hoff in Munich, on the 21st of June. Most everyone including my wife and I were in Germany for a day or two of touring before the official get-together so I'll leave the personal stuff for later. A typically nice touch, one of literally dozens of "nice touches" that BMW would extend to us over the week, was a chauffeured car sent to pick us up upon arrival to Munich. And that was just for starters. There was much, much more to come! Day 1 The official festivities began at 7PM on the 21st of June. Here's the Bayerischer Hof hotel from the outside and quick pic of one of our rooms. Absolutely 5 Star and breathtaking!! Two blocks from the Marienplatz, 3 blocks from the V Market, perfect location. Oh...and a 10 minute walk from the Hofbrauhaus, Ayingers and the Augustiner Keller "downtown" locations. Our first official get-together was exciting!! Neat to put faces to names finally and then meet the rest of the group who haven't yet joined the forum. The evening began with cocktails followed by a fantastic dinner and an intro to the week's festivities by Kevin Marcotte of BMW Canada. And the night continued into the wee hours, captured for posterity by BMW's fantastic media team who would be with us for the remainder of the week!! Anticipation for delivery day was building..... Day 2 Time for a plant tour. Our bus shuttled us all from the Bayerischer Hof to the BMW Welt arriving at about 10:00 a.m. A quick opportunity to shop in the Welt Store and then it was off to the plant tour. No photos allowed by us but our resident media team was on board and we'll share as soon as we get them. The plant tour was something that most anyone can do but....we were offered some special insights into the engine building (ours of course) and a chance to participate in the end-run vehicle checks/calibration of a group of M4's as they came off of the line. Again, pics to follow. After the tour it was on to the big bus once again and we headed out of Munich to the BMW Driving Experience facility in Maisach - about 30 minutes away. Everyone registered for what was going to be an exceptionally exciting afternoon but first...lunch and some introductory comments from the facility staff. Most wolfed down their food in order to get out and into the fleet of 2015 M3's, 4's and 6's that we'd be driving for the better part of 4 hours. About 1/2 of the M3/4 fleet were equipped with CCB's so it was destined to be an interesting afternoon being able to feel....no, push... both the standard and optional brake systems. Exactly the opportunity many of us were waiting for!! Despite the cloudy, cool weather there wasn't any rain. Only water on the track was from the sprinklers on both the slalom/braking course and then again on the drifting pad. The lapping track was completely dry. What an excellent day, got to push these "they don't belong to us M's" to the limits pretty much and everyone had a blast. For a few of us who only quickly test drove their M3's/4's before purchase, this was the perfect opportunity to learn their power, their limits, DCT, etc. before we ventured off after our delivery. Brilliant!!! More pics everyone, Mary and I were having way too much fun to take anything passable lol. After our track experience was over, the winners for the day were tallied and....well it wasn't me. The proud winners can post their pics please!!! There's lots more being submitted by the group of us so stay tuned throughout the thread for many, many more. On to the evening festivities for Day 2. After a quick stop at the hotel we were bused to Munich's famous Augustiner Biergarten. Wow, what an incredible place, 5000 seats and home to those huge Augustiner beers and traditional Bavarian food!! A great evening and more bonding between what would become a very tight-knit group of M enthusiasts. Here's just one of the many pics we all took. "Prost!! Back to the hotel we went at the evening's end and a few more cocktails amongst friends sent us to bed. Tomorrow....the big day!! Day 3 Delivery Day Well the big day finally arrived (not that the other two weren't big lol, we all wished our time in Munich wasn't coming to an end). On to the big bus at 9:00 a.m. and onto the BMW Welt for our Exclusive BMW M Delivery experience. A few of our group had been there before but that didn't temper anyone's excitement. We pulled up just after 10:00 a.m. and met up at the reception desk to check our luggage. What an efficient team they have there, absolutely ceased to amaze everyone how organized they are. Once the bags were tucked away we were all escorted up to the Premium Lounge level where the vehicle owners completed their paperwork. Here we got a "first look" at the delivery floor but because there were so many of us, not all of the cars were visible. Oh well, nothing that a fabulous cuppacino or breakfast snack couldn't fix!! About 11:30 or so we were gathered and toasted by Kevin, Joerg and the head of BMW Welt who gave us their best wishes for a safe journey. And then...it was down to the floor with our huge group of Delivery Specialists.
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07-05-2015, 07:53 PM | #13 |
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OK here we go to the floor. Keep in mind there were 15 cars to cover so the following pics will only be a sample. Amongst those fabulous M3's and 4's you'll find an M6 GC in San Merino Blue - this one belonged to our journalists Daniel and Alec who were preparing a piece on the Tour for Air Canada's En Route magazine. Cool. You'll also get a peek at our BMW media group who spoke, took pics and filmed just about all of us. Very cool. We had a great sampling of BMW's Individual colours amongst the group...Tanzanite, Azurite, Moonstone, Frozen Black, Frozen Brilliant White, Frozen Silver, a lone "Alpine White" (long story, Mario_Kart will explain) in a mix of F80's, F82's and F83's. Also along for the ride were Matt and Kevin's corporate F83 in Mineral Gray, Nikolas and Manuel's M6 GC in Frozen Silver and Joerg's car, our leader, a San Merino M6 Vert. 19 cars in total for the tour which would commence after lunch. Anyways, here's a sampling of delivery pics...
Once everyone was finished with their individual deliveries it was time to start the cars, do the delivery lap and then get them parked outside and ready to head off to Austria. The sound of all of those M's with the M-Performance exhausts was deafening. Certainly woke up the visitor gallery above lol. What a neat, neat thing to be a part of, something that none of us will ever forget!! We had our farewell lunch at the excellent Welt restaurant overlooking surrounding the Olympia Park (someone can post pics if they can please). And then it was off to take our farewell pics before heading out. We left the Welt at about 2:30 p.m. and headed out to our first destination, the Interalpen Hotel Tyrol in Austria. Here's a few random pics of the drive and then our arrival at the hotel. This hotel was BREATHTAKING. It had a drive-in lobby. I think just about everyone's mouth dropped when we entered the underground. And then....we were greeted by hotel staff in the beautiful "car" lobby adorned with wood paneling, carpet.....good lord it was extravagant!! And this was only the "car" lobby and drop off area. The rest of the hotel and it's surroundings, as you'll see, was unbelievable. Kudos to BMW for choosing this location. Never seen anything like it..... Here's a picture of Flo, in the blue, who was our primary photographer during the trip. You'll see some of his professional work later and it's brilliant! The Azurite and Frozen Brilliant White combo in the pic right after Flo is an example of his work!! The rest...back to my "attempts" at photography. After a few hours at this beautiful hotel we were whisked off to the Ropferhof Restaurant just down the mountain a bit. Fantastic meal as we'd already come to expect from the choices that BMW was making for us. Here's our restaurant for evening dinner... And after dinner it was back to the hotel for some fun and relaxation in the bar and the cigar lounge. A perfect ending to a perfect evening. Here's a few of the "other" guest vehicles at the Interalpen...we were in good company!! Day 4 An early morning with a fantastic breakfast and it was time to pack up and get ready for the largest leg of the tour - from Seefeld, Austria to Ascona, Switzerland. 419 km's lay ahead with a detour planned to drive the Stelvio Pass which was about mid-way. We all gathered together for a driveway briefing with Joerg in his M6 Vert who would lead the way...for anyone who could keep up with him lol. Everyone was extremely excited to say the least and everyone that made it will post lots of Stelvio Pass pics because I was an idiot and missed my exit. Nuff said. I lived the Stelvio Pass vicariously through the others who actually drove it. Damn I was pissed!! Anyways it was a fantastic driving day (more fantastic for some than others and I will now drop the subject lol) with lunch scheduled for St. Moritz, Switzerland. Here's the view from our "cordoned off" parking area... After a gorgeous lunch it was time to head off for our hotel, the Castello Del Sole in Ascona. Arrival time was early evening for most and what a way to end a long "driving" day. This hotel was just stunning!! The manager came out to greet everyone as they arrived and provided us with a personal touch to the evening's dining event. Off to our rooms and then a meet up at the outdoor bar for evening drinks followed by a very extravagant dinner. Yet again, BMW went out of their way to provide us with the absolute best. Our rooms were nothing less than condo-sized with separate livingroom, bedroom and of course a 25m long balcony. Who can do without such accommodations??? Day 5 A very late night was had by all but the festivities had to give way for our next day's adventure...from Ascona, Switzerland to Rapallo, Italy - a rather short but thoroughly enjoyable 285 km drive. Here's everyone getting ready in the a.m. after another great breakfast. The hospitality at this hotel was quite exceptional and we were sorry to leave so soon. But...onwards to Rapallo and the Excelsior Palace Hotel. Flo was going to be taking so driving shots today so we cleaned our cars and off we went with Manuel in the Mineral Gray vert with Flo riding high.... Attachment 1238836 Aside from the drive to Italy I also attached some of Flo's mountain shots from the day before. His work is exceptional and the whole bunch of us are waiting for the complete set. You can certainly see the difference between his and....ah never mind lol. Next stop was the Excelsior where we arrived just in time to catch the ferry boat to Portofino for lunch and some time to explore this beautiful place. We all checked in real quick and they followed Nikolas S. to the dock. Onto the boat and over to Portofino we went where lunch at a quaint harbour side restaurant was served. What a neat place and the food was just excellent!! A couple shots of the chef at work...very entertaining and you could tell he just loved what he did!! The remainder of the afternoon everyone spent off on their own exploring shops, the homes, the harbour. Just a beautiful place. As beautiful as Portofino was, we had to leave and get prepared for our evening Aperitif Session which was scheduled for 7:30 p.m. at the pool side. Stunning of course, a comment that had become common place amongst us. An infinity pool overlooking the Mediterranean...can't ask for more!! A wonderful dining experience followed and then....a few of us decided that the pool was calling. A fitting end for the evening!! Tomorrow's drive to Monaco and the celebration of the end of our journey was going to be special so most everyone had a good night's sleep (for a change lol).
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07-05-2015, 07:54 PM | #14 |
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Day 6 - Final Day
Well the last day finally arrived. Our drive would take us from beautiful Rapallo, Italy to our destination, the Fairmont Monte Carlo in Monaco. A gorgeous day lay ahead so off we went. Best told in pictures and these are the best of the best - taken by Flo our BMW photographer. You'll see the drive, the hotel located at/above various points on the famous Monaco GP course, our final dinner, our M Awards ceremony and the party to end all parties in the open air Nikki Beach Bar on top of the Fairmont which overlooked just about all of Monte Carlo. A very special day and a fitting end to a very special week. Our kudos to BMW Canada and BMW M Gmbh for putting on such an event. It was a "once in a lifetime" experience that we'll treasure!!
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07-05-2015, 08:06 PM | #15 |
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Not bad
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Grey Matter:2008 E92 M3:608/425. SG/PS SOLD!
Dark Matter:2015 F80 M3:495/505. SOLD! Anti Matter :2016 F82 M4 GTS What next?!? A 2022 M235i GC- I must be getting old |
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07-05-2015, 08:39 PM | #17 |
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07-05-2015, 09:45 PM | #19 |
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Ah, all the memories!
Looks like a very Epic Trip!! So far!
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07-05-2015, 09:55 PM | #20 |
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Very nice!
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07-05-2015, 10:04 PM | #22 |
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Very nice, how difficult was it to contact a photographer? And what do they charge?
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