Traveling in comfort and arriving with style is never a problem when you're headed to the BMW CCA's Oktoberfest. Reason? You'll be driving a BMW, of course, and BMW is renowned as the creator of some of the world's best road trip machinery. You can go in ultimate class with a mid-70's 3.0CS, or the ultimate lap of luxury in any late-model 7-Series, but the trip is nearly guaranteed to be a relaxed, pleasurable driving experience. . . nearly guaranteed. This year, for me, the trip fell a little short of an orgiastic journey to nirvana. Why? It's 2002, dude. It's our year. The year of "die neue klasse" box with maximum bang for minimum bucks: The venerable BMW 2002. As a fancier of the watershed coupe in BMW's storied history, I have been the proud owner of more than 20 of the little buggers. I've raced 'em, flipped 'em on the roof, chased the opposite sex in 'em, and generally had fun all out of proportion to the cost of these simple, stylish over achievers. So, in 2002, I just had to drive a 2002 to Oktoberfest. Not my M635CSi, a 160 mph, air conditioned, quiet, stereo-enhanced, Recaro-chaired wonder. Oh no. Not this year. This year, it was a 2002 or nothin'. Mistake!
To begin, I didn't have a running 2002. Not even a sign of one. And after scouring the surrounding territories for an '02 in running condition, I became discouraged at the quality of local offerings as well as astounded at the prices good examples had begun to command. So, I got a big snake-whackin' stick and, with a sigh of resignation, made the long trek out to "the farm" where I knew a prime example of '02-ness lurked in the weeds. The very tall weeds. I had bought the thing in a fit of irrational enthusiasm (my doc says the drugs will help that) and dragged it to my ex's country place to. . . appreciate? It had appreciated right into the ground from the looks of things that day. But I'm not easily discouraged by rusty hulks, so I winched the dead carcass sideways onto my trailer and carted my prize off for "restoration". When I got it home, I found that everything not left behind in the field was rotten. The engine of my new jewel was seized up tighter than Dubbya's brain at a press conference, the floorpan on the driver's side was a Flintstone special, and the windshield, well, there was no windshield. But hell, all I had in mind was a 3500 mile road trip through the trackless deserts of Kansas, so where was the problem? Actually, there was no problem until I created it. See, I could have let this project die right there in the dank recesses of my garage, relegated it to one of the cobwebbed corners of my infinitely faulty mind and just . . . let. . . it . . . die. But no. In an unceasing demonstration of mental acuity, I immediately called a few journalistic friends, editors they were, and announced my intention to resurrect a thoroughly nasty 2002 from the dead and drive it from Atlanta to Keystone, Colorado. Naturally they said, "Goody. Why don't you just do that very thing, big guy, then send us the story. We'll look for you in the obituaries."
"Ha!" I thought. "Double ha! We'll see about that!"
Since the work necessary to make a real runner out of my 1968 2002 would have consumed, maybe, ten years and $20k, give or take, I elected to do rather less than a concours resto. A big-ass pry bar to unsieze the engine, a quick valve job, a new pedal box, a basement-fresh windshield and I was ready for the rowdy road. I did put a set of tires on my spavined steed. To top it all off, in a classic case of overkill, I refurbished the big 320i brakes, oversized sway bars and five-speed 320i transmission installed by a previous owner. See. It wasn't all bad. And even though there's a big difference between driving a car around the block and driving it to Keystone, Colorado, I was beginning to gain confidence in my ability to beat the devil. Because I know how to do a road trip. Even in a primitive box like an '02. Maybe especially in a primitive box like an '02.
First, there's the Zen of the trip. Clearing the mind allows one to absorb all the sights and sounds of the road. But this clearance is not easily accomplished, young grasshopper. Number one, you have to take tools to accomplish anything from a radiator refill to an engine rebuild. It is so, young one, because as the great Zen master Murphy has said, the tools you need will be in inverse proportion to those you take.
I elected to fill the trunk and back seat with good stuff, including a neat BMW bike for transportation to the next freeway exit should my vehicle, say, burn up in the median.
Next, you have to take a stash of all the parts likely to fail on a BMW 2002. And I do know about parts failure on an '02. At midnight. In the Florida swamps. On Christmas eve. Don't ask.
Thus equipped, you can throw a couple changes of underwear in your kit bag, point your bow west, and cast off. I find a sailing analogy especially pertinent here, because I would be making about the same speed as a late-19th-century square rigger when compared to my available M635CSi. I mean, I could have said, "So it's 2002. So what? I'm drivin' the M!", but oh no, not me. So I found myself in perhaps the world's most cosmetically challenged BMW 2002, embarked on a road trip that would be perfectly suited to the road-rocket M-car. Why? Something about the alligator mouth syndrome, I think. Meanwhile, the editors were waiting, green eyeshades in place, chortling occasionally at the thought of a Running Dog Lackey of the Press lying in the trackless Kansas wasteland, skeletal remains picked clean by vultures.
Did I make it? Bet your ass. But not without . . . um. . . some events. It is to my credit as a master electrical genius that I got all the way to Chattanooga before the dash went up in flames. Loose tach wire. No problem. Remain calm. Everything is under control. After an underwear change, it was on to Mt. Vernon, Illinois, where the fan ate my radiator. Mt. Vernon is rural, bucolic, a lovely place, really, but not where I want to spend the rest of my life, so I chewing- gummed the radiator (silicone seal, actually, not nearly as good as chewing gum). That got me as far as Kansas. . .the deserts of Kansas. . . Salina, in the very middle of the Kansan desert, before the radiator let go again. This time I went for the Forever Fix: J-B Weld.
By the time I got to Keystone, I had regained all my old-crock road trip moves and the proper touch. I got cocky enough to drive my wreck to the top of Mt. Evans, at 14 grand and some-odd feet, and to the top of Loveland pass a couple of times. Hell, I even thought about driving up to Lander, Wyoming, to see a buddy, but I won't subscribe to some forms of insanity, and that trip met the criteria. Instead, for a week I enjoyed the company of a thousand other Bimmerheads beneath the cobalt skies of Keystone. We drove, we drank (not simultaneously, you understand) we ran slightly amok. And when it was time to go, I wasn't worried about my ride. Though driving an ancient 2002 to Colorado is like wearing a pair of bagged out training flats to run a marathon, by golly I did it, got the tee-shirt, and had fun doing it. Cruel shoes, indeed.
In the end, my old box got so confidence inspiring that it was a real shock when, on the return to Atlanta, the fuel pump let go just outside of Aultville, Missouri. Don't look for it on the maps. I think it's a mirage. I coasted to the shoulder, knowing that my 2-liter was fuel-starved and that I had a quarter tank left according to the gauge. A finely honed sense of roadside repair told me that what I needed was the spare fuel pump. Ah yes, the spare fuel pump. I pictured it in my mind's eye. Saw it perfectly. It was in the basement, at home, in Atlanta.