Welcome to the Fleet!

In my last couple of posts, I've been hinting at a new car in the fleet. I've been waiting for all the paperwork to be done before making it official on the blog, but today the title and registration paperwork was completed, and it's really ours: a 2007 BMW Z4 3.0si Coupe!

I had been looking on the Internet for a while for this spec. I first thought I wanted a Z4 M Coupe, but then I remembered my experience with the Z3 M Coupe I owned several years ago. It was basically too fast to be fun on the street! That is, illegal speeds came so quickly that all the fun was over before it was barely started. I have genuinely enjoyed playing in the non-M Z3 Coupe more than the M Coupe. Not to mention, the M Coupe commands much higher prices...

While the Z4 Coupe is not as rare as the Z3, they aren't exactly on every street corner. I was searching nationwide, and for the combination of colors, options and mileage I was considering, I found only two in my price range. One was in Atlanta, and the other in Albuquerque. Atlanta was the obvious choice, especially when Mary Ellen told me she would be passing through Atlanta on March 31 on the way home from a business trip. We arranged our schedules so I could take the train to Philly, then catch SEPTA to the airport, fly down to Atlanta, and have just enough time to walk to her gate before she arrived. And that's exactly the way it played out! Even better, the dealer picked us up at the airport and drove us straight to the car in Marietta (about a 30-minute drive) so there was no hassle there either.

I bought the car from a high-end consignment dealer called Gas Motorcars. Our sale was handled by Tony Marzullo, who with a partner has owned the dealership for four years. In that time they've sold over 1000 vehicles. Sounds like a pretty nice gig! Here's Tony with Mary Ellen.

Even though the Z4 is fairly exotic for the circles I travel in, it was pretty much the lowest-end selection in their current offerings. Here it is among its stablemates, followed by several pictures of the cars I couldn't afford....

After closing the deal, we drove over to our friends Lem and Bonnie's house, where we had a marvelous meal provided by Bonnie, and lodging for the night. Lem and I pored over the car, managed to get my phone connected to the 2007-vintage Bluetooth, and I snapped an odometer photo while sitting in his garage - pretty low miles for a nine-year-old car, averaging less than 5,000 per year.

The next morning (a Friday) we took off for home. We stopped near Spartanburg, SC for lunch with friend Arlen Clarke, and then pulled into the BMW factory for a family photo. That's where the Coupe was made in April of 2007. Unfortunately, the Zentrum museum there was closed for renovation, but that just got us back on the road more quickly.

The car ran flawlessly over the nearly 800 mile trip home. However, once we were home there was a bit more money to spend. This is the second time I've bought a car from a state without annual state inspections (the other was the Z3 Coupe in Maryland) and in both cases, the cars had accrued failures that would require fixing before passing the PA state inspection. In this case, they included the windshield washer pump (an easy fix, and I was astonished that the part was in stock at AutoZone), the low-tone horn, and an intermittent failure in the Xenon headlights that required an igniter to fix. 

I guess I'll quit complaining about the PA inspection system - it does help keep cars roadworthy. One fun fact is that I was able to get both the Z4 Roadster (we call it Merlot, the official BMW name for its color) and this Coupe inspected for free (excepting the repairs to horn and lights) at Faulkner BMW due to a promotion they were running. 

I will, however, complain about how much it costs to insure this beast! The 3.0si is the most powerful Z4 variant, excluding only the mighty M Coupe. It only costs $389 a year to insure Merlot, a Z4 2.5i Roadster, but the Coupe has the "high performance" flag set in the insurance database. When I got the bill of $895, I called to complain and point out my advanced age and clean driving record. She said, "It doesn't matter who you are, and it doesn't matter how you drive. If the flag is set, you gotta pay!" Dang.

Today I received the title paperwork from Georgia, and took it right to AAA to transfer. Thankfully, all was in order, and now we're completely legal. I'll be doing some routine maintenance on it, and pondering the important question: what are we going to call it? The color name is "Schwarz," which is "Black" in German. I don't want a car named Schwarz! 

I considered Dunkel, which is German for "dark." I considered "Sabine" (pronounced "Sah-BEE-nuh") after the famous racing driver of the BMW "Ring Taxi" at the Nürburgring race track in Germany. Someone suggested "Gretchen," and I like that a lot. My friend Gretchen countered with "Goethe," which is cool but a little too pretentious for my pay grade. 

I suppose there are any number of German composers I could consider. This car isn't really about music either, although either "Johann" or "Sebastian" (Bach) or "Georg" (Händel) would be pretty cool. Feel free to offer suggestions!