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      06-16-2013, 03:19 PM   #47
rickk
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Drives: E39 M5, F56E Mini Cooper SE
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: The Netherlands

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Me and my wife just spent 3 weeks with the F21, on a 4000km kind of road trip / ultimate break-in journey / pilgrimage to Munchen.

We went to the Nurburgring, B500 Schwarzwaldhochstrasse, Route Napoleon, French & Italian Riviera, Tuscany, Venice, Grossglockner Alpinhochstrasse, Salzburg, Munich and finally a 700 km Autobahn blast back home to the Netherlands.

The trip turned out to be pretty epic and the car has been GREAT throughout. It's flies on the Autobahn, it's small enough for the city and on those mountain roads it's really a dream, the way the car dances from corner to corner.

Had a few days with 8 hours of driving in it and usually I was sad that we had reached our destination. Great seats. Climate and satnav also worked fine, and speed limit info never seemed to be wrong.

Best drive was the route Napoleon between Grenoble and Cannes, trying to keep up with an Italian delivery van . Something in that road for everyone. Most scenic was the Grossglockner, stunning views. The most boring was North-East Italy around Venice, and the most challenging were definitely the parking garages in France.

High point of the journey was the factory tour in Munich. We had booked Regensburg but came an hour late due to heavy traffic, so we had to wait until a slot became available in Munich, which fortunately happened. It was great to see the robots working their magic to build an F30 every 67 seconds. You get close to all the action and the tourguide seemed to know every little detail and fact of BMW production to a point information overload. Highly recommended.

Booked an E92 M3 with BMW on Demand in Munich, but unfortunately it was damaged and they offered me a fully loaded M6 convertible for the same price instead. Drove that around southern Bavaria (around the lakes and up the Tatzelwurm) and while it was fun, I sometimes wished I was driving the 125i on those roads. While the M6 is ofcourse insanely fast and capable, it all becomes a bit "Playstation". No real sense of speed, until you need to brake hard.. Then you'll find that you were indeed going 200+ kph and that you're in a big heavy car. Had a few butt clenching moments, but fortunately it had a button for that too, seats with butt massage.

All in all extremely happy with the F21, and the only other Estoril Blue F2xs I came across were at BMW Welt, so.. it's not as common as the forums might lead you to believe.

(Saw quite a number of CLAs though. I must say it looks good with all the AMG bits on. But FWD, so who cares!)
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2013 F21 125i Estoril Blue M Sport
2002 E46 320d Steel Gray M Sport
1986 E30 325i Royal Metallic Blue
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