My Afternoon at the Ultimate Drive for Breast Cancer...
This past Thursday the Ultimate drive came to Athens GA. I had reserved two rides: a Z4 w/3.0 auto and a 530 w/SMG. I tried to get in the line for the 545 w/6spd manual but the list was closed when I got through with my first two drives. I saw one of the parts guys get out of this car with a BIG smile on his face! Dammit! Oh well....
It was a nice spring afternoon and the tops were down on all the convertibles. The 12 mile route was mostly semi curvy backroads with a 4-5 mile stretch of freeway thrown in. My first drive was in the Z4. The first thing I noticed is how nice and hard this thing pulled from the bottom to the top. The auto shifter worked very well especially when manually shifting. You pull back to downshft and forward to upshift. I would take this motor & tranny in my 525 anytime! This car was an absolute blast to drive! It cornered like it was on a rail!
I waited about 30 minutes to get in the 530. This car was not quite as fun to drive as the Z4 but for a car of this size and weight it cornered pretty nice too. It had a little bit of lean though. I'm not sure if it had the active suspension. After messing with the I-drive for a minute I guess it was stuck on one of the satellite stations. The SMG did not shift as quick as a pure manual even when I used sport mode. The drivetrain seemed to be a little unsettled when upshifting during hard acceleration.The front end would bob up and down really bad between shifts too. I was somewhat dissappointed with it SMG overall. Maybe they'll fine tune in the future. It had a very nice hwy ride - 80mph seemed like 45mph and very quiet too. The interior was very nicely done with no glued on vinyl panels like our e34's. I prefer the sportier dash of the e34/e39 to the more luxury styled dash of this car.
In the end when I climbed back into "old paint" I wasn't dissappointed in the old e34 at all. I swear I could feel the blood line going back to to our cars!
JR
1992 525 IA, EAT chip, 16 x 7.5 Rondell 58's, BavAuto Springs, Bilstein Sports, Elipsoid Smileys & fogs, Z3 Pistol grip shifter, 4 VDO gauge package, Azure Blue w/nice patina - clearcoat shot