MyE28.com

All the local German car clubs got together today for a show at Rice Park in downtown St. Paul.

The BMWs were in the prime parking spots, right in front of the Ordway theatre. We were pretty well represented - among other cars there was my M535i, an e28 M5 and an e12 528, an e30 M3, an 840 and an 850 six speed car, a bunch of 2002s, and two e30 track cars w/e36 M3 engines.



Some of the Mercedes and Porsches in attendance.



How about a Borgward Isabella, and a Ford Capri?



A Porsche 550 and a Speedster.



A big Mercedes coupe.



There's a guy here in town importing Trabants. Not the sort of thing you see very often in Minnesota. You can buy one too, from his website at http://www.shocauto.com/ .



The weather held up for most of the morning, but it started to rain around lunchtime. Apparently, Porsches melt in the rain...as soon as it started to sprinkle, those guys all jumped in their cars and took off.



This is the exhibit currently running at the Science Museum next door. :~




[Edit by stuart in mn on [TIME]1118543774[/TIME]]

looks like you had a pretty good time, besides the rain..

nice!

Please tell me more about the "Borgward Isabella"....is that a German car? Doesn't sound like it. Also, what is a Trabant? Yes, PCars DO melt in the rain....at least the ones that tend to frequent car shows....racers and daily drivers don't count
Cheers,
Tim

Borgwards were built in Germany from 1924 to 1961, you can read about them at http://www.borgward.com/.

Trabants were built in communist East Germany. They were a weird little car, with a two cylinder, two stroke engine and a body made out of a weird composite plastic consisting of phenolic resin reinforced with cotton fiber. You can read about them at http://home.clara.net/peterfrost/trabant.html.

Wow Stuart,
Thank you for the informative links on these cars. I've heard of the Trabant but did not know it was made out of a composite plastic consisting of phenolic resin reinforced with cotton fiber. So THAT's where GM/Saturn got the idea for plastic body panels, eh? LOL!

The Borward is a completely new beast for me....fascinating.

Best,
Tim

Damn! And I missed it!!! !@#$
I need to read here more often but I've been slaving over my wife's '88 5283 for the last 6 weeks.....Still I would have like to have gone.....

My pet project however I have to say is going to be restoring my '78 320is....ahhh...someday soon I hope....

Where abouts are you Stuart? I'm in Richfield.....

Take care...

~David

David, I'm in south Minneapolis, not far from the Institute of Arts.

Say, there's an informal local group of BMW owners who meet up the first Tuesday of every month, along with periodic tech sessions/wrenchfests. You should stop by sometime and check it out. The website is at http://www.technobmw.com/mainpage/mainpage.html and the web board is at http://www.bimmerboard.com/forums/minneapolis/

Hey Stuart! Thanks for the invite. I actually read awhile back when I was perusing Bimmerboards about the meets at Lake Calhoun. Just now clicked as to who you folks are. Looks like you all are sporting the newer models. Sweet! Like I said I've been hooked on the bastard nostalgia of the early E21's. I'm just a sucker for the classics. What can I say? The wifes' '88 E28 is barely worth putting all the money it would take to really fix her up. It seems to becoming a money pit. I'd like to have someone who knows a little more than I about the bottom end of my E21 so that I can determine if I just need to replace the rod bearings and buy some time or if I really gotta pull the motor and yank the crank. Being here only a few short years from Seattle I can't say that I know where the Arts Center is.....I live at 494 and Penn and work up at the Metro Light-Rail depot on Franklin for Bombardier'. Maybe next month I can come up, grab an expresso and get acquanted with a few folks. I've been living under the wife's car for so long now I need to get outta here...LOL!

Thanks again!

~David

David, you should stop by next month. Yes, there are some newer cars showing up there, but there's a bunch of us in older cars as well. It's a pretty good bunch of people.

Nice pics Stu.