Hi Guys
I’ve been getting the BMW Car magazine since the beginning of 2010, and last year my wife was kind enough to take out a two year subscription for me. For me it is definitely the best BMW magazine in the world, I am not the most technically inclined person but appreciate the focus of Total BMW; honestly though it is not as good as BMW Car.
The quality of the features and the look and feel is not up there and the spread is not as wide, plus I found that they often do features that have been done by BMW Car or very similar. At CNA and Exclusive books Total BMW is more expensive than BMW Car although they are priced exactly the same in the UK at £4.50.
For time to time I do pickup Total BMW at Magz for R49 obviously these are older issues. What I do also get from Magz at the same price is Bimmer an American magazine which I rather enjoy and does have a different perspective to the two UK magazines.
Since I’d been getting BMW Car the one thing that I noticed was the lack of features from South Africa, although we’ve had such a rich and fascinating BMW history; first plant outside of Germany and the following models exclusively made for our market (which has made South Africa the envy of many) E12 530 Motorsport Limited Edition, E23 745i, E30 333i and E30 325iS. There was however a steady stream of features from countries with far less of a BMW pedigree such as Turkey, Greece and Australia. After having picked up Classicman’s thread on restoring a 2002 Tii (into a Alpina replica); not only was it a Tii but it was a square tail light, with plastic front grille my favourite BMW of all time only 1233 right hand drive square tail light Tiis were ever produced. I contacted BMW Car and asked if I could do a feature on Nick’s car, they agreed and the feature appeared in the October 2012 issue, frpm this interaction I developed a friendship with the deputy editor Sebastian de Latour, and started sending him interesting bit and pieces on all things BMW happening in South Africa.
When I had peaked his interest sufficiently I suggested he come to South Africa, he was very keen but the costs for the trip was not going to make it possible, I approached SAA and Voyager was kind enough to provide Sebastian with a free business class ticket (taxes included nogal) so I interacted with the guys from BMW Club and we planned his trip to coincide with the 2012 Concours. From the outset the focus for Sebastian’s trip would be on the four exclusive BMW models to South Africa, Colin van Son our classics man at the Club was instrumental in helping put together the logistics of Sebastian’s visit which also included three what’s In Your Garage features.
Since Sebastian’s departure in October last year there have been three features in succession on BMWs from South Africa; December featured the Concours, January featured Marek Letowt’s E30 333i, February (which I received yesterday) featured Paul Casson’s classic collection which included a E9 CSL, E3 3.0S, E3 3.0L, E24 635i and E12 518i.
March will feature Luis Malhou’s E12 530MLE and still to come is Don Salt’s E30 325Is, Marek Letowt’s E23 745i as well as his entire collection (separate WIGY feature) and last but not least the van Son family collection. So plenty to look forward to and as I was saying to some of the guys mentioned here if you haven’t taken a subscription for BMW Car now is the time to do so, for twelve months it’s just over R1000 including deliver and within seven days from rolling off the printing press you will have it, no more scouring every CNA and Exclusive Books (PS Magz does not stock BMW Car) you can find or hoping to catch a copy while in transit somewhere.
From virtually having no features on South African cars to having South African BMW metal being featured since October last year except for November we can all be proud as South Africans who wear the blue and white roundel on our sleeves…….eat your heart out Australia. :joy:
