Automotive Life

I have hosted the site at home since the beginning. The main reason was that the company where the domain was hosted had limited disc space with their cheapest option and I wasn’t prepared to pay for a heavy duty option with 100’s of email addresses etc. So I opted for the Mail Only option […]

Well the site ran OK for years on old laptops but after running non stop for the last 8 years my old Siemens-Fujitsu (ex-work) laptop was beginning to struggle a bit. Not having access to retired laptops anymore (retired) I decided to migrate to a Raspberry Pi headless server. It’s not the newest model, it’s […]

Well I’ve eventually got the site up and running on a new server. After configuring a newer machine with a LAMP installation on a Debian8 OS at the end of last year, I tried to export the old database and import it on the new site. Unfortunately without much success. The old site was not […]

I was invited by a mate of mine, Kos from London, to show the car on their E30 Club stand. On the day there were a couple of unexpected extra guests so Kos and I put the Sharks in the Show’n’Shine Arena. Well not a lot to show for a day at the Pod – […]

Another invite from the E30 guys. This time to the Grote E30.be meeting at Sint Niklaas in Belgium. A nice little drive for me, just over an hour across the border to our southern neighbours. Just went for the crack to be honest and on driving onto the town square I was directed to one […]

Some of the E30 guys I know invited me to the E30 Summer Meet at Gemert, The Netherlands on 22-23 August 2015. I think there’s a bit of a click because they’re mostly modders like me. I don’t hold quite the same views as the typical restorers who tend to be traditional E24 owners. But […]

Probably a bit late as it’s almost summer but I just didn’t find the time to write up the rest of the winter work. At the moment I’m waiting to get the car back from the spray shop (De Staart Autoschade, Dordrecht) where the nose is having a small scratch and stone chips put right. They’ve had […]

Well winters here again, well it’s been here for a while actually. Under Dutch Oldtimer reduced tax laws I’m not allowed to drive the Beamer on the roads in December, January and February. Not a big problem as I haven’t used it in the winter for donkey’s years. It also gives me some time to […]

One of my Indian colleagues had won some tickets for the Historic Grand Prix in Zandvoort on the 31st of August but not really being interested in cars he offered them to me. A couple of family petrolhead friends went with me in the BMW. Parking was a nightmare, although if it had been beach […]

The last day of the road trip would take us to Hull to catch the return Ferry So that was it then, almost the end of the Scottish tour. Our last real Scottish breakfast at the Abercorn Guesthouse was as good as we had come to expect and afterwards we settled the bill and waved […]

Day 7 would end at the Abercorn Guest House in Portobello, Edinburgh. After the usual breakfast we had decided to take a more interesting route to Edinburgh than straight back through Glasgow and the motorway. So we set off straight north on the A819 to meet the A85 at the top of Loch Awe. Not […]

Returned again to the mainland for a stay at the Argyll Hotel in Inverary for the night of day six. Above the Beamer parked in front of the Hotel. A lot of bus parties at the hotel but a little interest in the car from a group of middle-aged bikers. The day started as usual […]

Day five would find us at my ultimate destination, Islay – home of some of the finest whisky in Scotland. It was beginning to seem quite normal to start the day with a full hearty breakfast. The hotels here seem to try and outdo each other with the completeness of a ‘full’ breakfast, Kilchrennan was […]

Back to the mainland on day four with an overnight at Kilchrennan House, Oban. Again a traditional hearty breakfast at the Broadford Hotal meant that we could get through the rest of the day without any real need for lunch. The weather had been a little cloudy when we arrived on Skye the evening before […]

The end of day three found us at the Broadford Hotel in Broadford, Skye.  We had left Loch Lomond after another hearty breakfast and travelled north up the A82 through the Grampians which took us to heights of 600m with the mountains around us at over 1000m. Near Glencoe we stopped at the ‘An Torr’ […]

The first night in Scotland we would spend at the Inn on Loch Lomond at Inverbeg. We left Bowland Bridge after breakfast and drove through the Lake District via Windermere, Ambleside, Keswick and Cockermouth to Carlisle. Then avoiding the A74M up through Galloway via Dumfries and Kilmarnock and on to Glasgow. Possibly not the best […]

After visiting friends and family in the Midlands the first night of our trip to Scotland was spent in Bowland Bridge, Lake District. Here below a few pictures of a beautiful (possibly untypical) evening in the Lake District. What we noticed most was the peace and quiet compared to the city environment we left earlier […]

Sunday the 6th of July saw us at Classic Park Festivals BMW Tradition meeting in Boxtel. Arriving fairly early I was parked near the front of the parking area and as it was again good weather I, of course, opened the hood. I was immediately approached by one of the organisers to ask if I would […]

Bimmerfest 2014 was held, as the previous year, at the Trafficport in Venlo. Weather was good but to be honest the announced “6 Gathering” at the centre of the paddock was a disappointment. There were very few e24’s, certainly a lot less than last year. The space reserved was slowly eaten away by the arrival of […]

Photo’s taken during a visit to the Sharknose Meeting in Arnhem on 24th May 2014. The meeting was much better than the previous year with a large contingent of excellent e24’s (Old 6 Series), many of the owners had travelled from Germany. My car was parked in front of the Schmiedmann BMW stand to help promote […]

Day 4, Tuesday 13th August After leaving the previous evening at 1800 we called at Santorini at around 0200, Anafi around 0400, Kasos around 0930 and I drove off the boat in Karpathos at about 1130. Elly, Denise and grandson Nick were waiting on the dock but being one of the first on the boat, […]

Day 2, Sunday 11th August The second day of the trip started calmly enough with a leisurely breakfast at the hotel. The trip from Verona to Ancona was about 360km so I thought I had time enough to spare before the ferry left at 1330, it was Sunday after all. Was I in for a […]

Day 1, Saturday 10th August In August 2013 my daughter Denise got married and wanted to use the BMW as the wedding car and of course I was more than happy to do that. On the day I drove her to the town hall in Dordrecht myself and the car was used afterwards for a […]