I recently visited the BMW Plant in Spartanburg, SC. I had my camera with me so I took a bunch of pictures. I also took the plant tour, but no pictures were allowed on that. Below are a bunch of pictures of the cars and bikes in the Zentrum, which is the name of the museum and visitors center.

The Plant is very large and rises as high as 8 stories in some sections. The Z3, M Coupe and X5 are all manufactured at this plant. The vehicles manufactured here are shipped all over the world. So if you see an M coupe in Germany it was built in SC. With the M Coupe and Z3, 25% of the manufacturing is automated and 75% is manual. It's just the opposite with the X5, where 75% is automated.

All the employees are called "assoicates" and every one is on a first name basis including the president. Every one wears black slacks, gloves, armcovers and a BMW polo shirt. The shirt is either blue, white or grey and has the associates first name on it. Employees are encouraged to lease vehicles and after they are driven for 8-10,000 miles they are turned back in for a new vehicle. The old vehicles are then auctioned off to dealers. The parking lot was 50+% BMW's.

On the average 7-8 of each type of car are fully built a day. BMW does not mass produce vehicles. Every vehicle is purpose built for a customer. The last thing to be added to each vehicle is the BMW logo on the hood. Before the logo is attached, a black box is on the hood with electronic tracking information. These vehicles are shipped all over the world so they are both right and left hand drive. The engines are not built here, but everything else is. All assembly takes place here.

The manufacturing takes place in the order of VIN numbers. Painting, however, takes place out of order. This saves money and allows for greater speed when painting. A giant stacker that rises 7 to 8 stories files the cars as the come out of the painting area and stores them until they are called upon for further assembly.

Below is a picture of the Zentrum Building from the Zentrum brochure.

Here is another picture from the brochure. The white building on the left is the Zentrum. The Buildings in the background are the actual plant.

Here is the plant touring ticket. Suprisingly enough, there is no legal mumbo jumbo any where on the ticket.

Here is the 1930 Dixi. I don't remember much from about it, but it's from the brochure. The kidney grill is one of the first and is rather large.

Here is one of the art cars from the Zentrum. This pictures is from the brochure. Artists that worked on these cars include Hockney, Warhol, Chia, Lichtenstein, Calder and others. I believe this car is a 3 series.

Here is one of the many BMW airplane engines where BMW got it's start. The BMW logo is a white propeller in a blue sky. I knew that much, but I didn't know that these colors are also the colors of Bavaria. Bavarian Motor Works (BMW). Again this picture is from the brochure. The writing on the top of the engine is German and goes something like this: Achtungltiatarnicht am Lufterrad durchdreleren. Some of it is kinda fuzzy so I'm guessing.

James Bond's Z3 as seen in Goldeneye. This was actually the first Z3 built. It was hand-built by engineers in Germany.

Here is the wall of bikes. As you can see, some of these are suspended as much as 45 degrees.

Here is a post-card they gave me. It's of the BMW 328. On the back it says: The BMW 328 - a legend defined. In 1936, this roadster gave birth to a new era of automobile... the sports car. With its rounded front and distinctive kidney-shaped air inlets, the 328 played a key role in shpaing the BMW personality and is credited as the inspiration behind the Z3. I believe this same car appears on the wall behind the m3, bike and formula 2 car and on the tour ticket.

All of the below pictures are ones I took. This is a picture of a turbocharged m3, a racing bike and a Formula 2 car. All of these cars were actual competition cars. They are not mock-ups.

Here is my favorite production car in the whole museum. I don't know what it is, though. It had no sign or other markings. My guess is an E36 M3, but it could be anything. Next to this car is the crazy car with the picture at the left in the background. Didn't Steve Urkel have on of these cars?

Originally posted by Twist
Next to this car is the crazy car with the picture at the left in the background. Didn't Steve Urkel have on of these cars? It's a BMW Isetta, and yes, Urkel had one. :rolleyes:

;) Nice! Anything else? :flash:

Here is the BMW Z1 Roadster. Designed specifically for an American public after the Roadster became popular on our shores.

Here is some kind of Roadster. I don't remember the name. :( It's been well nigh a week and much of the information I remembered about these cars is gone. It looks pretty, tho.

Originally posted by Twist
Here is some kind of Roadster. I don't remember the name. :( It's been well nigh a week and much of the information I remembered about these cars is gone. It looks pretty, tho. 507 :)

Here is another picture of the Formula2 car seen earlier.

Here is one of the :cool: er motorcylces in my opinion. This was on the floor next to the Formula2 car and also the first vehicle (a motorcycle) to drive the entire Pan-American highway. That was a highly weathered motorcycle! :eek:

Here is the Heishman BMW. It had a shot at the land-speed record, but it had several malfunctions on the final run. On the run prior to the mishap it got to 325+mph. It is the fastest BMW in the world. It runs off of a highly modified M3 engine.

My final pic! :(
Here is another car whose name I can't remember, but it didn't have a tag next to it anyway. I think it's a Le Mans car, but I can't be certain. I think it's funny how the engineers went out of their way to put the kidney grill on the front. It does look nice, tho. I have my picture next to this car, but I'm not posting that! :rolleyes: Not yet anyway. The engine in the back is the same as the one in the car. It's massive and has BMW MPower written really big on it. Behind this car they had a movie playing about BMW's racing history. It was really quite interesting.

Other things that I didn't take pictures of include:
[list=1]
The 1st BMW to roll off the assembly line in SC. It had all the signatures of the employees who worked on it.
An old black BMW that I don't know the name of. You can see a little bit of it in the picture of the Hieshman
The first Z3, Mcoupe and X5 that rolled off the line
Any of the brochure cars
Two art cars. One of was an E36 M3 and the other was a 5series
A huge line of BMW engines
Several cars that were in BMW's 30s, 40s and 50s era. I didn't really like the look
A formula 1 engine with twin intercoolers, I can't believe that I didn't get a picture of this. :(
A BMW 20's convertible.
[/list=1]

Zentrum has a website. Click here to got there. www.bmwzentrum.com (http://www.bmwzentrum.com)

Edit:This seems like a waste of a post, and it is, but I can't seem to delete it. I accidently hit the "send reply" button too soon, so this post came out as an unfinished version of the post below. I can't delete it. So I edited it to have the zentrum website.

Here is a picture of some of those older cars that I didn't think I had a picture of. The Isetta is a yucky green.

Nice pics! Sounds like a cool place to visit.

That white car you like is actually a E36 M3 CSL. The CSL was the special lightweight edition (200-300 lbs lighter than regular).

http://www.bmwworld.com/pics/3er/e36/m3/ltw_832.jpg

Originally posted by Heep
Nice pics! Sounds like a cool place to visit.

That white car you like is actually a E36 M3 CSL. The CSL was the special lightweight edition (200-300 lbs lighter than regular).

http://www.bmwworld.com/pics/3er/e36/m3/ltw_832.jpg



correction... that is the M3 LTW(lightweight). you just got the name wrong. all LTW's are '95s and are very cool. have special options the stock E36 M3 didn't have.