Made In Germany
The legacy of the land of BMW.

Made In Germany.

I read those words on a paper tag wrapped around the replacement battery cable I picked up from the local BMW dealer an hour ago. Peeling off the tag, I inspect the cable - actually two cables, a long round one sheathed in brown plastic which connects the negative battery post to the engine block, and a shiny flat grounding strap which bolts to the inside left fender. Over the last 30 days, I've replaced both the battery and alternator, and have mended some suspicious wiring where the cable attaches to the positive battery post. Installing my newly acquired cable & strap is the last step in restoring the electrical system to health on my 15-year-old 633CSi, the elegant coupe member of the BMW family from the 1970s and 80s.

As I admire the workmanship on such a mundane part as a battery cable, I think for a moment about the unique character of German cars. Since 1973, I've owned 11 of them: 6 VWs, 4 BMWs, and a Merkur. Without exception, they've all possessed the distinct blend of precise workmanship, enduring design quality, and rewarding driving pleasure which no other nation on earth has so consistently produced in their automobiles.

To this day, I recall the wonder I felt as a 10-year-old when I ran my fingers along the prickly gray carpeting in the storage space behind the back seat of our family's new 1965 VW Beetle. The material was so different from anything an American manufacturer would put in a car, yet it made perfect sense for what it was designed to do. That Beetle was built with the unerring logic of Dr. Porsche's original design; 35 years later, cars like the New Beetle, Boxster and Z3 are only the latest and most fun manifestations of purpose-built focus which has always characterized German automobile design. Today, I still experience a sense of wonder every time I find myself inside a German car.

As with all BMWs of its era, the 633CSi was built near Munich, home of bratwurst, biergardens, and the Alps. While Porsche, Mercedes, Audi and VW all build fine cars, only BMWs are built in the southern German province of Bavaria. So what kind of people are these Bavarians?

In the early 1980s, Road & Track described them as "south Germans who seem more artistically inclined, somehow more soulful than their Prussian counterparts to the north." The same writer went on to say that BMWs share "an aura of purposefulness blended with warmth, a kinship with aircraft rather than carriages."

As I lift away the old battery cable, with its grounding strap nearly frayed through in two places, I consider that cars can't help but reflect the character of their builders. The workers who live in Munich who drive to the BMW plant every day to build the cars we love are part of a community which didn't just rebuild its city from a pile of rubble after the Allied bombing raids of WWII. Rather, Munichers restored their city. Every red-tiled roof, every cathedral spire, every detail of the city that existed before the war was recreated. If there was anything left of a building, it was restored. If there was nothing left, it was rebuilt in every detail, just as it stood before being blown to bits. The Munich of today is thus, in large part, the Munich of the 1800's, or even the 1700's.

Might it follow that this passion by Bavarians to restore and preserve their past is reflected in the cars they design and build? Why else would a 30-year old 2002 and a shiny new M5 both be so readily identifiable as a BMW?

Design heritage is about honoring what has gone before by incorporating the past into the present (and future). Somehow, this passion to preserve the worth of a valued legacy becomes a part of the ownership experience of many of us who drive BMWs. It helps explain why we spend copious amounts of time and money to preserve or restore our vehicles.

I tighten the last bolt on the new battery cable, and it feels good beyond just finishing another small job on my car. In an era when products and people are intentionally used up and thrown away, maintaining the special cars we drive up to the high standards of the people who designed and built them just feels right.

Kind of like restoring a city from scratch.

Whether our BMWs come from Bavaria or Spartanburg, there is an evident and unbroken continuity of design from the first BMW to today's supercars. BMW's design heritage is driven by one passionate force - the joy of driving.

Next time you sit down behind a steering wheel bearing the spinning propeller roundel, don't just think of the fun you're about to have. Think of the people who designed and built your BMW, of the lasting spirit of freude am fahren they engineered into each of our ultimate driving machines, and be glad there's a land called Germany.  -Rick Sparks

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