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It's 3:30AM and I'm at my friend's house for the pickup. He's awake, excited, and ready to get on the road to Nashville, a three hour ride from Memphis. After a quick gas-up, we're on the way. I'm showing off the new Dinan Stage II on my '97 540ia, but since it's been on the car for less than 48 hours, I am timid taking it nowhere near it's limits on the I-40 onramp. "It's stiff," I say. "Yeah, he says.. Tight."
We watch the ridges of the Tennessee basin wake up as the morning sun burns away the low-lying fog. This is one of my favorite things-- watching the world wake up. Far be it for me not to accelerate the process by taking the 540 through a few quick punches to the floor. This makes the V8 sing from the exhaust and makes me daydream myself into Germany, cruising the autobahn where my 283 horses could run free. Besides, we needed something to gauge the car for which we were going all this way. We both grin with the acceleration, knowing it's the first of many for the day. The three lanes ahead prove that Nashville is on the new day's horizon, and we both know we're going to make the flight to Detroit, no problem.
The $119 Northwest Cyber Saver flight (round trip- just in case) actually leaves 5mins early, 7:00AM. It was as if the Powers That Be agreed that my friend had waited long enough and showed it by this offer of 5 free mins on a really cheap flight.
Except that "Chuckles," the annoying airline passenger, sat behind us laughing at everything he said and making it impossible to catch any sleep, and the fact we're pretty sure we landed in Ann Arbor and taxied for 20 mins into Detroit, the flight was flawless. By 9:00AM CST, we'd experienced our next "sign from above" the $20 one way Detroit pickup - Toledo drop off car rental- 57 miles on the odometer.
After a fast food bite, we found the car dealer where the guy had parked his silver / aubergine 1997 540i6 with 61k miles and still under a 100k BMW warranty. "Aww man, It looks soooo good." I say in the car. "Yep. It does look good." he said. Excitement was making us forget we'd already been awake for eight hours and it wasn't even noon. Close inspection with a paint magnent showed good sheet metal all around. Could be overspray in the doors, but it could just be some dirt. VIN tags in all the right places. Factory stickers on the radiator shroud. This may have never been hit. Manufactured June 1996. I think to myself that we will surely have trouble with seals, etc, it's an early car.
A drive down the highway yields no noise from the door seals *or* the fold down back seats. No caliper rattle noise.. except one at start up that sounds like an exhaust heat shield. No worries, though. BMW warranty.
My friend had secured a cashier's check for the correct amount, appropriate insurance, and the previous owner was nice enough to let us use his Ohio tags for the return trip. It wasn't even noon and I called home to tell my wife that he'd bought the car and we were headed to the airport to return our 127 mile rental. While I was behind him on the way to airport, I looked at his car going down the road. "He has GOT to get the clears." I say to myself thinking how odd the orange signals look after I've looked at my own clears for over two months.
The ride home was great. You know that shared joy you have when a friend gets something cool, and how amplified it is when he gets a really cool car. We played with buttons and I re-read the manual to re-learn the things I'd forgotten and show him all the bells and whistles I'd missed showing him on my car.
We figure it's about ten hours home, and we'd have to go through Nashville whether my car was there or not. Toledo, Dayton, Cinncinatti, Louiville. While I was driving, we found a stretch of Interstate 65 perfect for testing the six speed's long legs. Actually, we found about ten stretches and tested the legs for each gear. Third was about 90-95. Fourth looked like about 120. Then it was time for 5th. A brief glance down looked like about 136. Even though the adrenaline told me different, it was time to slow down and regain our 10-over composure.
I reminded Wade of our experience a few hours earlier when I showed him the speedometer was 4 miles off- at 83 miles per hour as indicated on the speedometer, we were only going 79.1 according to the speed computer. "We were probably only going 128 or so." "Yeah, but that was still pretty damn fast!" "Yep!"
We would have stopped in Bowling Green, Ky for the tour of the Corvette Museum if we weren't five hours away from home and pretty sure the museum was closed. Besides, we were an hour outside of Nashville, and anxious for the promise of a really quick 200 mile trip to Memphis.. Me in my Glacier Green 540ia and he in his Silver 540i6.
The ride home was just that: quick. Really quick. There was the occaisonal cell phone call from my friend to check the difference in RPMs from my 3.15 automatic diff to his factory 2.83 in sixth and fifth gears. We would plan to get side by side and punch it. We would use traffic to cut off people who tried to split us apart. It made the two and a half hours fly right on by. It was just plain, sophmoric fun.
His exit is about four outside of mine, so we parted company and went to see our wives for the first time in 20 hours, 1400 miles, and one "new" 540i6. I'm sure you understand that we're pretty good pals, but to be honest, I wouldn't have gone to Toledo to pick up a Yugo.
I'm not sure what his handle will be on the list, but when he posts, please join me in welcoming him. He's an ASE certified mechanic who "helped" me do the 3.15 diff (actually, he did most of it). He's one of about 200 people nationwide who's passed EVERY SINGLE test Microsoft exam available. Most of all, he's got a really sweet 540i6, and he'll be doing some fun modifications and taking the pictures himself.
Hope you enjoyed the story.
-j
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