BMW Performance Center West: A Drag-Racing Ringer And A Hatchback

You may know Chuck Vossler as a Roundel writer or for his presence on bmwblog.com. I say he’s a ringer, sent to the new BMW Performance Center West in order to humiliate his Roundel editor.

But a designer beat him to it.

There were all sorts of play-with-our-cars activities laid out for journalists at the Thermal Club in California’s Coachella Valley, best known for growing dates and music festivals, as BMW announced a new partnership with Thermal that will see a new BMW Performance Center opening there next month. The Thermal Club is a high-end members-only facility with plans to complete a 4-5 mile circuit for the exclusive use of its members; you can read an excellent LA Times story about the Thermal Club here.

The first phase of asphalt construction is complete, providing a 1.8-mile ribbon on which to play. Another circuit is nearing completion, with the final loop planned for construction after more villas are sold. Meanwhile, BMW will have their own 1.3-mile circuit separate from the Thermal track, along with ample areas for handling exercises and skid-pad work. BMW’s Performance Center West should open sometime in November, which is good news for BMW fans in the West: At this point they constitute only a little over 10% of the thousands of drivers who take part in the programs at the BMW Performance Center in South Carolina.

BMW spokesmen and Thermal Club officials say the collaboration will run for “at least ten years.”

To celebrate the new alliance, BMW Performance Center instructors were on hand to put journalists through their paces with autocross competition, lead-and-follow track driving on Thermal’s 1.8-mile South Loop, and—oh, yes: a drag race.

Now, I have been in a drag race or two before, some of them even legal, but this single-elimination showdown was tricky. First, of course, you had to accelerate in an M6 Grand Coupé or M6 convertible, and Launch Control was definitely not allowed. But at the end of a short run, you also had to whoa the damn thing down and stop within a cone-defined box. Well, I never! Is this a drag race or a brake test?

I was one of the first two competitors on the line, and in the next lane was designer Erik Goplen of DesignworksUSA. Oh, right: Like he’s never driven an M6 before! I’ll bet DesignworksUSA has a parking lot full of the damn things. And he’s obviously familiar with carbon-ceramic brakes, too, because even though I think I may have edged him at the start, I was so concerned with stopping in the stop box that he nipped me at the end of the run.

Oh, great: One run and I’m outta here.

But every run produced one winner and one loser, and Chuck Vossler quickly demolished his first opponent, and then another—and another. Meanwhile, Goplen was doing the same thing, until finally there was nobody left but those two, Goplen in the near-side lane, Vossler on his right. And when the starter dropped his arms like Natalie Wood in Rebel Without A Cause, both drivers lit up their M cars and let out for the distant stop boxes—and Vossler got there first!

Writers 1, designers 0. Niener niener niener.

I did a little better in the autocross—it’s a filthy job, driving somebody else’s M5s and burning up their tires, but somebody’s got to do it—finishing on the podium, I think, but I had to leave before they awarded whatever fabulous prizes we had coming, so I can’t be sure about the final results.

I am sure I could have done better if I hadn’t been in shock.

You see, in addressing the assembled journalists about the joys of the new 4 Series Gran Coupé, our ringer designer, young Erik Goplen, had expressed a modest pride in the team’s greatest design challenge: creating the hatchback.

Hatchback?!

Here’s the thing: I have driven the 428i Gran Coupé. I spent most of a day in the little rat in Spain, and fell madly in love with the car. And my luggage must have gone in and out of the car at least twice. But I never noticed the hatchback!

I think that must have been the effect they were trying for, and it worked. At the Thermal Club, I went outside and squinted at the 4GT they had on display, and I defy you to recognize it as a hatchback. The cut lines and the rear-window surround make it look like a coupe with an abbreviated trunk, as you’d expect—until you open the trunk and find that it takes the rear window up with it. Wow! Is this the perfect car, or what?! First, it has the sleek, elegant looks of a coupe, but it has four doors, so you can convince your Sensible Life Partner that it’s a practical people-hauler. And then, when you open the yawning trunk hatch—what should we call this thing?!—you discover a Costco Expedition Vehicle!

I say it’s the perfect BMW for just about anybody except for us diehards who demand the open-air pleasures of a drop-top—which in Thermal means about 110ºF. The only more perfect car would be one that came from M GmbH.

And why not? Doesn’t the M6 Gran Coupé deserve a little brother?—Satch Carlson