Sunday Edition of the Morning Reads: 15 October 2006

[Mika]

BMW Group Press Club:

NEW DEALER ANOUNCED!

Sorry to get your hopes up but it is a new Rolls Royce dealer in Austria.



It has been announced today that Karner&Grossegger GmbH Co. KG in Vienna will represent Rolls-Royce in Austria. A new sales and service facility will be opened officially in the first half of 2007, although customers can already see the Rolls-Royce Phantom at the Karner&Grossegger showroom.
Axel Obermüller, Managing Director of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars in Europe and the Middle East, said: “We see Austria as an important location in the heart of a growing European market for Rolls-Royce. We receive an increasing number of enquiries from Austrian customers every month. Karner&Grossegger has many years of experience in the luxury car segment and so is uniquely positioned to provide a service to these discerning individuals.”

In 2007, Rolls-Royce will have a three model line-up, with the new convertible set to join the two Phantom models. The Phantom remains the best-selling super luxury car in the world, with sales in 2005 at a 15 year high.

The addition of this new partner in Vienna, which will sell Rolls-Royce exclusively in Austria, brings the total worldwide number of Rolls-Royce dealers to 75, 18 of which are in Continental Europe.


[ Intermot[B]

http://www.worldofbmw.com/images/uploaded/061009-intermot.jpg


The Last Day.


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BMW MOA ( http://www.bmwmoa.org/features/intermot_06.htm)

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BMW RA ( http://www.bmwra.org/otl/intel/)

http://www.bmwmoa.org/forum/image.php?u=2468&dateline=1155424858

Intermot ( http://www.bmwmoa.org/forum/showthread.php?t=13241): BMW


[B]News:

With his H-D focus Doug Klassen makes a very Germanic observation on a subject near and dear to many of our hearts; you are what you eat, in his current post on his blog Forty Years On Two Wheels ( http://40on2.blogspot.com/). Perhaps we feel smug because we still feast on asphalt with our favorite chef.

BMW Chartered Club:

http://www.robietech.com/LogoSmall2005.jpg

club: RobieTech aka TCWINNH, #311
founded: 6/21/1995
contact: Chip Robie (boss@robietech.com)
4900 Willowtree Ln.
Clayton, NC 27520 Virtual
www.robietech.com

meetings: N/A
events: RobieTech TREET
other events: Blow things up real good!

A virtual BMW MOA Chartered Club that bills itself as not for the timid.


News from the 2007 Rally area:

Ozaukee – Washington Daily News ( http://www.dailynewsol.com/index.htm)

Fond Du Lac Reporter ( http://www.fdlreporter.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage)

The Sheboygen Press ( http://www.sheboygan-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage)

Daily Citizen, Beaver Dam (http://www.wiscnews.com/bdc/)

Rumors:

Benevolentdestroyers by 10

Feature:

There is a well worn saying that to know where you are going you must know where you have come from. Sometimes the best place to start is in the beginning.

Every family has one. You know that child that is born that and in their early years looks and acts, well a bit different than the rest of the family. You can trace all the family genealogy in them yet they are different. You sit back and hope that they will grow out or into something to be proud of or at least accepted. Parents dote over them encouraging them on hoping the best for them. Teachers and coaches of various ilks spend just a little extra time with a mix of seeing potential and feeling compassion for the different little tike. Then one day they come home with their firs accolade. Then another until one day they come home in a new suite and you see that ungainly and bit odd infant and youth now standing before you as a striking mature person. Still a bit odd perhaps but cutting a very impressive figure.

In the BMW family that child is the BMW R80GS. The new HP2 Megamoto stands as an impressive machine. But even in its muscularly chiseled new form you can see the ungainly roots it came from that made people question BMW at its inception. Here are a few web sites that help us investigate the beginnings


http://www.micapeak.com/bmw/gs/images/gskala.jpg

The 1986-1996 R80GS and R100GS (http://www.micapeak.com/bmw/gs/gs_para.html) gives us an overview of the beginning.

http://homepage.sunrise.ch/mysunrise/joerg.hau/mot/img/gs80h.jpg

Devoted rides developed (http://homepage.sunrise.ch/mysunrise/joerg.hau/mot/r80gs.htm).

http://www.bmbikes.co.uk/photos/specphotos/r80gs.jpg

If we were to put Sgt Joe Friday and his partner Officer Bill Gannon on the case of finding out about the beginnings of the GS, you can imagine them going to Phil Hawksley of BM Bikes and Friday asking for just the facts (http://www.bmbikes.co.uk/specpages/R80GSBasic.htm) Mr. Hwaksley, just the facts[/img].

After Phil Hawksley a poster would have handed them the [url=http://members.tripod.com/jhomann/Bmw-r80gs-en-01.htm]the parts files (http://www.bmbikes.co.uk/specpages/R80GS.htm) for the GS. I can see Officer Gannon looking at Friday and giving his…you had to ask for the facts again and look what we got, just look.

Here are a few photos of the GS in its youth.

http://www.motorcyclespecs.co.za/Gallery/BMW%20R80GS%20Dakar%20%202.jpg







Bike Candy:

The first motorcycle (http://www.motorcycle.com/mo/mcmuseum/firstbike.html)?

http://www.motorcycle.com/mo/mcmuseum/mcphotos/lowtecht.jpg

http://www.motorcycle.com/mo/mcmuseum/mcphotos/roper.jpg

[Mika]

This is a car guy extra looking back at the originator of the Mine Sir Alec Issigonis. Mini is one of the members of the BMW Group and recently released the text of this extra as a press release.

Happy Birthday,
Sir Alec Issigonis.
History.
http://www.carkeys.co.uk/images/cm_images/general/people/issigonis.jpg
The introduction of the new MINI marks: 18 November 2006, the 100th birthday of Sir Alec Issigonis, the creator of the legendary classic MINI living on in its concept, philosophy, character, and flair in the new MINI.
A great success from the start, a role model to this day.

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The ultra-compact car designed by Issigonis and his team and presented for the first time in 1959 is one of the very few icons in the history of the automobile that has succeeded in maintaining both presence and popularity throughout several decades.
A car development engineer working for Morris, Issigonis developed the concept of a particularly compact, but nevertheless spacious and very agile four-seater. And indeed, the result of his work soon became the role model for all small cars to follow: For the first time Issigonis combined an engine fitted crosswise at the front – four cylinders, 848 cc, 34 hp – with front-wheel drive. This drive concept, the short body overhangs, long wheelbase and wide track offered ideal conditions for truly unique use of space at the time, as well as sporting and safe driving characteristics.
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The great-grandfather of the new MINI launched in August 1959 by the British Motor Corporation (BMC) was sold for 10 years under the Austin and Morris badges. Sold in the guise of the Austin Seven and Morris Mini-Minor and distinguishable from outside only through the different badges, this highly popular small car retailing in Great Britain at a base price of GBP 496 quickly became a huge success. Indeed, from the start it was acknowledged not only as a particularly practical and inexpensive, but also an emotional car emanating urban chic, joy of swift motoring in dynamic bends, and universal appeal transcending all classes.
Genuine versatility: estate, van, pick-up, jeep, and saloon.

http://www.mini-club-denmark.dk/images/MaanedensMini/Sort_Mini.jpeg
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The MINI brand was not created until 1969, following the merger of BMC and Leyland. But in the meantime numerous model variants had been successfully launched into the market, a Van making its appearance in January and being followed in September of the same year by the Traveller and Countryman estate models. A Pick-Up came next in January 1961, and the offroad MINI Moke finally made its appearance in 1964. Even before this happened, BMC had included two notchback saloons, the Riley Elf and the Wolseley Hornet based on the MINI, in their range. And by 1965 sales of the MINI already amounted to one million units.
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Facelifted for the first time in 1967,
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the MINI received a somewhat “sharper” radiator grille and new rear lights. The engine range was also modified by the addition of a 998-cc four-cylinder developing 39 horsepower. Then, following a further modification in design and the introduction of the new brand name in 1969, the MINI was fit for the ’70s. Not all body versions made it to the new decade, however, with the MINI Moke and the Saloon versions bowing out of the market in 1969. The Estate models, Van, and Pick-Up, on the other hand, remained in production alongside the classic four-seater until 1982.
The original MINI: the ideal starting point for success in racing.

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The great popularity of the MINI also benefited from outstanding success in motorsport characterising the spirit of this two-door athlete right from the start. Indeed, through its exceptional qualities in terms of performance and driving behaviour, the MINI moved right into the motorsport scene, with John Cooper, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of racing cars, quickly recognising the sporting potential of this new small car. And so the first MINI Cooper, a one-off sports model, made its appearance in the very first year of the MINI, John Cooper and his driver Roy Salvadori setting out for the Italian Grand Prix in Monza.
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John Cooper had already been receiving engines from Morris for a long time, and was therefore a regular business partner of Alec Issigonis, the Technical Director at Morris – and right from the beginning he had been privy to Issigonis’ plans to build a very special small car.
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Indeed, Cooper saw the MINI as the ideal starting point for a new sports car able to challenge the Lotus Elite, which dominated the race track at the
time. And he was right: Within a short time, private drivers of the MINI were scoring one class victory after the other throughout the whole of Europe.
http://www.imca-slotracing.com/images/1963TT-63.jpg
While the Works Team focused primarily on the British Touring Car Championship, new activities beyond racing soon started to develop: A small series of 1,000 units marked the start of production of the MINI Cooper in 1961, developing 55 hp from its 997-cc power unit and soon followed by the 70-hp 1,071-cc MINI Cooper S, both of which remained in production until 1971.
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The MINI Cooper was not built again until 1990, remaining an ongoing success in the market until the end of production of the classic MINI in the year 2000.
Three-time winner of the Monte Carlo Rally.

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Right from the start, the MINI hit the headlines not only on the race track,
but also in rallies. In fact, team manager Marcus Chambers was at the wheel himself when the MINI made its rally debut in September 1959 in the Norwegian Viking Rally. And soon thereafter, the MINI scored its first class win in the 1960 Geneva Rally, this time in the hands of brothers Don und Erle Morley. Only two years later the MINI was ready for all-round victory, Pat Moss, the sister of Formula 1 legend Stirling Moss, and co-driver Ann Wisdom bringing home victory in the Tulips Rally in the Netherlands.
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Not even two years later, the MINI Works Team entered the annals of motorsport once and for all, when six MINIs set out on an official mission in the 1964 Monte Carlo Rally, facing an apparently almighty armada of competitors with twice as much engine power in some cases.
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In this struggle of David against Goliath, the MINI quickly showed its particular fortes, Irish racing driver Paddy Hopkirk at the wheel of a MINI Cooper S bringing home an absolute sensation and scoring the MINI Works Team’s first victory in the world’s most famous rally.
One year later in 1965, Finnish racing driver Timo Mäkinen repeated this outstanding success, and his fellow-countryman Rauno Aaltonen, now famous as the “Rally Professor” and the Chief Instructor of MINI Driver Training, rounded off the season for the Works Team by winning the European Championship. Again shortly thereafter, in 1967, Aaltonen brought home the third overall victory for the British brand in the Monte Carlo Rally.
Despite good results also in the years to follow, it became clear in the late ’60s that the MINI Cooper S of the time had reached and passed its zenith as a racing car. Modified regulations gave clear preference to larger cars with bigger engines, the MINI making its last official works appearance in the 1970 Rally of the Hills in Australia.
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The MINI CHALLENGE: clubsport meets lifestyle.

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This sporting heritage of the MINI brand provided the absolutely ideal foundation for establishing the MINI CHALLENGE ( http://www.challenge.mini.de/de/index.html ) in 2004 – and ever since the modern MINI has clearly proven its exceptional sporting spirit.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d4/Hockenheimring_Mini_Challenge_2005.jpg/333px-Hockenheimring_Mini_Challenge_2005.jpg

The fundamental feature of the MINI CHALLENGE is absolute equality at the wheel: All of the usually more than 35 drivers enter races with technically identical, 154 kW/210 hp MINI Cooper S sports versions. All of these cars are prepared at one and the same location on behalf of MINI and are optimised by the John Cooper Works Tuning Kit for success on the race track. The races themselves are held on the occasion of well-established events in the racing calendar, with the MINI CHALLENGE taking place regularly prior to Formula 1 races such as the German Grand Prix.

A genius and legend in one: Sir Alec Issigonis.
Sir Alec Issigonis, the creator of MINI, initially felt rather sceptical about the sporting ambitions his concept gave other connoisseurs and enthusiasts. For he regarded the MINI first and foremost as a car for everybody, and certainly not as a sports machine competing for titles and lap records.
Hence, Issigonis was initially rather reserved when John Cooper suggested developing a small MINI GT based on the “regular” model and selling this more powerful version in the market. Despite the close friendship linking these two legends, Cooper had to use all his conviction and show all his patience until the father of the MINI was willing to give his “baby” some “extra muscle”. But then, considering the success of the MINI on the race track and in rallies, Issigonis finally realised this was a good idea and the MINI Cooper was able to set out on its road to outstanding success in racing.
Alec Issigonis was born on 18 November 1906 in the Turkish city of Smyrna, today’s Izmir, as the son of an Englishman of Greek origin and a mother
from Bavaria. After training as an engineer, Issigonis first worked as a technical draughtsman in London and joined Morris in 1936, where he already worked on the development of the Morris Minor launched in 1948.
Ten years later he created his masterpiece: the world’s first small four-seater with front-wheel drive and the engine fitted crosswise at the front –
the role model for generations of cars in this segment and a true milestone in the history of the automobile. From 1959 to 2000, production of the classic MINI amounted to no less than 5, 387, 862 units.
http://homepage.mac.com/alexander_mini/.Pictures/2000Mini5001.jpg
With the MINI at the pinnacle of its success and in honour of his services to the British automotive industry, Alec Issigonis was knighted by the Queen in 1969. Sir Alec, as he was now called, then retired from regular business step-by-step in the course of the ’70s. He died on 2 October 1988, with MINI sales at the time already amounting to more than four million units,
at the age of almost 82.
History class dismissed.