BMW M Gmbh Headquarters and BMW M Studio - My Private Tour

[stealth.pilot]

Now that I have bought my second M5 Individual, I tried to charm my way into being invited to the M Studio. And it worked. I was lucky enough to be granted a personal tour of the BMW M HQ and BMW M Studio.

I also got a leather bound Amaro Brown book on M Individual as a gift, and a personal liaison to work with directly when I order my next Individual M Car. The potential from this new contact is to me the best thing from latest ED trip.

New cars:
In the BMW M secure lot, I saw the F80 M3, M4, M4 Convertible, and F15 X5M. I also saw a 435i Gran Coupe. All of these are beautiful cars. The latest Ms have much more physical differentiation from the base models than the M5 does. The 4GC is stunning and for those who want a smaller 5 this is the car - I hope they make an M variant, but my host denied that it was in the works (begs the question why it was at M gmbh in the first place). I wasn't allowed to take photos of any of this.

Here are some takeaways:
1) The people at BMW M HQ are truly hard core enthusiasts. They mod their cars, they drive hard, they are real fanatics! They also had a lot of competitor cars in the lot - Aston Martin, Maserati, Porsche, etc. They said they drive these to help them keep M on top. The visit really strengthened my association with the brand. I'm no longer thinking LCI CLS63.
2) They have sold 2 Individual F10 M5s to Sebastian Vettel (one he drives himself and one is for his father). So the triple (soon quadruple) F1 world champion is one of us!
3) Karl Lagerfeld designs his own Individual BMWs. His first one was on display.
4) BMW NA dealerships really are not very good at working with M HQ to customize customers cars. There is a lot more stuff they can do then we can get quoted for. For instance I was told no to Opal White leather, and that contrast stitching would add a lot of time to my order. The M representative said that both would have been possible without adding a ton of time.
5) The Frozen paint is pretty solid and has a stronger clear coat than the standard paints and the key is just not to wax it or use products that contain normal waxes. Swissvax Opaque is fine. He actually said that it is so resistant to fine scratches and swirls that you could put it through a machine car wash. That was interesting, but I won't be the first to try!
6) They can do a lot with embroidery. You can stitch anything you want onto the leather. Dragon logos, family crests, names, any image you supply. I asked for the M Logo and he says they do it a lot.
7) They can customize the leather any way you want, 2 tone, 3 tone, contrast piping, contrast stitching and any combination thereof. You can do this on any car, not just 7 series.
8) The M4 Individual will have all the customization ability of the M5.
9) They believe that all frozen cars should come with Black Chrome accents instead of standard chrome. He said most dealerships don't know how to properly order a frozen car. I really was kicking myself for not coming here last year when I heard that.
10) Everyone at M HQ loves the Ceramic Brakes - they are truly proud of them. I was chastized for not buying them when I showed them my car.
11) I saw a lot of frozen colors. I really think Grey is best, Black second, silver third. I don't like the colors: Frozen Blue is the best of them but it looks a bit fake to me. Also I confirmed that Frozen Red is really Frozen Sakhir Orange, and Frozen Silver is really Frozen Silverstone.
12) Pure Metal Silver is astonishing in real life. No photo can capture it. The way I would describe it is that it is so glossy it looks liquid. It looks like liquid aluminum, whereas frozen grey looks like solid steel. That said given the choice I would still buy Frozen Grey over PMS! The main reason is that the shinier the car, the more noticeable a speck of dirt is - so this color looks best when parked indoors.
13) Him and I came up with an initial spec for my 2015 Individual M. He said I can work directly with him in the future to by-pass the local dealers who don't know how to get things like black chrome accents, stitching, M embroidery, custom wheel finishes, etc.
14) You can have gradiated paint finishes like Lagerfeld's below. One person bought a car which was black at bottom, white at top, and blended in between.

Some pictures (not great because I was in the moment with the tour guide and lost track of photography):
Overview shots




The range of hides - remember 27 square meters of leather in a Full Leather M5



Pure Metal Silver 760Li


Sebastien Vettel's headrest embroidery


This looks like snake skin, but it is Fish skin. They can make trim out of anything.


Karl Lagerfeld's very first self-designed Individual BMW. Gradient paint finish, chesterfield couch style seats, stretched chassis, designed by Karl Lagerfeld inscribed in gold in the wood trim, lots of other details.





Current cars with Individual finishes

[B-1Pilot]

awesome!

the way I want to go on my next too. Really look forward to someone with your attention to detail commenting on how the frozen holds up.

Did you ask them why they went with cast wheels for the CP, by chance? Much as I like the look, I still have yet to hear a straight answer for BMW on the choice to not used forged.

[stealth.pilot]

Originally Posted by B-1 Pilot

awesome!

the way I want to go on my next too. Really look forward to someone with your attention to detail commenting on how the frozen holds up.

Did you ask them why they went with cast wheels for the CP, by chance? Much as I like the look, I still have yet to hear a straight answer for BMW on the choice to not used forged.

Sorry it didn't occur to me. I can email my contact and ask. I did tell him that the current CP exhaust isn't loud enough for US roads because the increased noise from concrete and poor Tarmac drowns out the exhaust. I also plugged Eisenmann.

[Stash21]

What would be good to know is why I can't seem do European delivery from UK. Anticipating someone to point out the UK is in Europe, I mean collect from Germany.

[Dionysus]

Judging by the two pictures above, I agree that frozen grey looks better than PMS, even after taking into account your comments that PMS does not photograph well.

BMW sold the F10 M5 Performance Edition in the UK in 2012 (for £95K) in frozen red, blue & white - the red was actually a vinyl wrap - my dealer had a used one on sale several months ago and it did not look good close up (stretch marks and other imperfections).

[Dionysus]

Originally Posted by stealth.pilot

2) They have sold 2 Individual F10 M5s to Sebastian Vettel (one he drives himself and one is for his father). So the double (soon triple) F1 world champion is one of us!

I had to double check you had not posted this last year. I don't think you'll be making his Christmas card list anytime soon...

[Neil McRae]

Originally Posted by Stash21

What would be good to know is why I can't seem do European delivery from UK. Anticipating someone to point out the UK is in Europe, I mean collect from Germany.

a few years ago I was at BMW in Munich (did a similar tour) - the reason is our stupid tax laws and how registration works here in the UK. nothing they can do about it without HMG changing the law apparently...

[FLOMACKS]

Very, very, cool. Did you get an idea on why you would have to charm your way in to get the personal liason? I would think they'd want any ED M buyer to walk through there. I know I'd go crazy on an individual order if they had someone helping/enabling me.

[Dionysus]

Originally Posted by Neil McRae

a few years ago I was at BMW in Munich (did a similar tour) - the reason is our stupid tax laws and how registration works here in the UK. nothing they can do about it without HMG changing the law apparently...

Nothing to do with tax laws or registration. Mercedes offer a factory collection package in the UK.

[Dionysus]

Originally Posted by FLOMACKS

Very, very, cool. Did you get an idea on why you would have to charm your way in to get the personal liason? I would think they'd want any ED M buyer to walk through there. I know I'd go crazy on an individual order if they had someone helping/enabling me.

If you want to 'go crazy' on an individual order, just email individual@bmw.de with details of your every desire and be prepared to hand over a blank cheque

[VintageFerrari]

Originally Posted by stealth.pilot

2) They have sold 2 Individual F10 M5s to Sebastian Vettel (one he drives himself and one is for his father). So the double (soon triple) F1 world champion is one of us!

Actually, the triple (soon quadruple) F1 world champion.

[ColdList]

Originally Posted by FLOMACKS

Very, very, cool. Did you get an idea on why you would have to charm your way in to get the personal liason? I would think they'd want any ED M buyer to walk through there.

And they probably do.

[DrKevM5]

Stealth, you are the MAN!!!

[bobafettt]

Spectacular!

[Rohardi]

Jealous!!!!

[uhn2000]

Nice review, it is too bad ///M does not do enough in NA to push their product options and configurations. I am not sure how much I would change about my car but I will tell you that the brakes are definitely something I would like to swap out. Compared to the CCB on my R8GT they are seriously lacking initial bite.

[RPiM5]

Originally Posted by DrKevM5

Stealth, you are the MAN!!!

+1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[stealth.pilot]

Originally Posted by Neil McRae

a few years ago I was at BMW in Munich (did a similar tour) - the reason is our stupid tax laws and how registration works here in the UK. nothing they can do about it without HMG changing the law apparently...

The guys at Jaguar NA told me the same about why they can't offer Euro Delivery for US customers in the UK.

[stealth.pilot]

Originally Posted by FLOMACKS

Very, very, cool. Did you get an idea on why you would have to charm your way in to get the personal liason? I would think they'd want any ED M buyer to walk through there. I know I'd go crazy on an individual order if they had someone helping/enabling me.

Probably because they aren't geared towards the volume of visitors that would show up, and to walk to the M studio you have to go past the prototype cars.

They've turned me away a couple if times previously.

[Purcell]

Subscribed for future reference.

Thank, Stealth!

[Neil McRae]

Originally Posted by Dionysus

Nothing to do with tax laws or registration. Mercedes offer a factory collection package in the UK.

honestly I have no idea, but that's the reason BMW gave me when I was there.

[Dionysus]

Originally Posted by Neil McRae

honestly I have no idea, but that's the reason BMW gave me when I was there.

More likely the profit margins are too low (or uptake too low) in the UK...

Experience has taught me that BMW AG are a very 'commercial' organisation & BMW GB being on the sharp end of the business may also want to minimise their risks by not offering factory collection package.