Yeah, I know it's been a while, but I've been very busy.
So, after Clean Car in San Diego, we went to Costa Mesa to drop the car off at it's temporary home for the next couple of weeks. The drive up was a bit slow, but it was kinda fun seeing people pull out their phones and stuff. This guy in an Audi was even taking a video of my car going 30 mph. Never had that before. Also got a few thumbs up from other German car motorists. Neat.
While I was gone, Mike (OcCoupe) made arrangements with his windshield guy to redo my glass.
The front is much better, but not 100% perfect. Reason being that the lower windshield trim you get now doesn't fit. The curvature is not there like on the old ones. It pushes the corners out funny and you have to make it contour to the windshield yourself, which really can't be done. That said, it's not all scratched up or burned with a torch, so 100% better.
The rear went smoothly and there was no excuse for the screwup.
My thanks go to Mike for taking time out of his schedule to help ensure this was rectified. I came into town on Friday 05/31 and spent time working on the car myself. Tim, the windshield guy came to put the sealant in and that job was sorted. Fortunately, the headlining came out unscathed and most of the paintwork survived. Sadly, there's a nasty gouge below the seal on the driver's A-pillar put there by the original installer. The seal and the window sat so low that it covered most of it. Well, now with the window in the right position, it's pretty obvious. Something that will have to be fixed next time the car goes back in.
I spent a bunch of time tracing the cause of a malfunctioning low-beam, which ended up being a broken ground wire. Fixed that, then commenced cleaning the car. I did the wheel wells, etc. They get dirty as soon as you move the car ten feet, but I figured this way I could make less work for myself later. I also took the opportunity to switch the BMW lug bolts I had been running for a proper set of Alpina bolts. The Alpina bolts I had were in need of some cleaning and polishing and I just didn't have time to do it before San Diego. The originals to the car were damaged, so I was lucky enough to pick up this set for a fair price.
I neglected to take a "before" picture of the right side, but here's what the wheels looked like before:
Not bad, but not correct. And I seem to be going for correct on this car.
That's better.
Actually transforms the look of the car in my opinion.
So, with that cleaning done, we had dinner, which was great. Then it was time for bed. As early in the morning, it was time to go to Cars and Coffee in Irvine, CA. I had been there before with Greg's 745i, but figured it would be good to take the B7. It was received pretty well. I didn't take any pictures and while I saw people taking pictures of it, a cursory Google search produced no results. I got some very positive feedback from people whose opinions I respect.
So, that was fun, then Mike and I got some great breakfast and it was off to work on more cleaning with the help of both Mike and Andy Wong and Jeff Tighe's shop in Costa Mesa. I learned a lot. My paint was very good and there was only a spot or two where Andy thought some attention was needed. I had done the lion's share of the work on Friday in Mike's driveway So, in my own super-disorganized fashion, I worked on the interior and trunk, ignoring under the hood since no one cared about that - or so we thought.
Jeff was nice enough to let us keep our cars in the shop overnight and even meet us back there at 6am Sunday morning.
Went to the show. Cleaned the car some more. Finished cleaning the car. Even at rags down, people had no idea what was being judged or how it was being judged. I figured I was safe preparing for San Diego rules. After walking through the event some, I soon realized what the different classes meant. Concours was for stock cars and Street Driven was for highly modified Panteras with 5" exhaust pipes and chrome everything. I figured Street Driven was the way to go since I drive my car on a street. Either way.
I placed second to a 1989 M3 that didn't appear to have been driven on any street. Given that there were several other clean cars in my class (just about every other M3 there), I felt okay with that. I got a plaque. I was confused since I didn't know what I won or why there were two cars from the Concours class in the line. Haha.
So, I have several people to thank, but I really have to thank Mike Burger (OcCoupe) for really pulling out all the stops to help me prepare for these two events - first by really leaning on me to enter, then pushing me to stay focused on what at the time felt like a monumental task of cleaning what I thought was an already clean car and also for how he inconvenienced himself making sure I had a covered place to store the car between events and working behind the scenes to get things like the windows sorted. From the very beginning of that "disaster," he very calmly told me it's something that could be handled and while I believed that was possible, logistically, it seemed like a nightmare. I eventually stopped looking at them and everything fell into place. I don't usually let people drive my cars and I'm not even comfortable driving in southern California, but I knew that I could trust Mike, especially given the kind of vehicles he deals with daily. I really appreciate his thoughts on the car as well. I'm quite pleased with how it's come out so far and frankly, I was not used to the attention the car was getting, as I've always had kinda crappy cars. So, again, thank you for that.
After the show in Huntington Beach, I headed down to San Diego and it was a pretty fun and fast trip. It's really a great driving car.
There's still a couple things other Mike has to fix on the car that he didn't get to before the car went to San Diego. Minor stuff. Then there's more to do like everything underneath and I don't even know where to start. The sad part is that with everything suspension-wise original on this car, it feels fantastic. Almost a waste to redo it all. It just all looks terrible.
So, there's my update of sorts.
It certainly is %100 better than before, though!
2nd on your very first outing is stupendous Chris! 
