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BMWCCA - USA
Oktoberfest 2000
Our Trip to the BMW Car Club of America Oktoberfest in 2000
Part Seven , last page: BMWCCA Concours
Back at the BMW Manufacturing Plant the last car event of the BMWCCA Oktoberfest was taking place. The Concourse d’Elegance was held on lawn in front of the Zentrum. Also present were an auto jumble plus an Oktoberfest stand. The BMW manufacturing plant is the first full BMW automobile manufacturing facility outside of Germany. In 1992 BMW announced that it would build a manufacturing facility in the United States. The 1,039-acre site outside Greenville, in upstate South Carolina was chosen. Plant construction began in April 1993 and the first American made BMW was shipped to a customer in March 1995, making the fastest start-up automobile manufacturing history. To date 200,000 Z3’s have been produced at the facility. A 1.1 million square-foot expansion to the original 1,2 million square-foot plant began in February 1996 and became operational in spring of 1999. The plant has over 3,000 associates currently employed at the plant.
The latest addition to the range of vehicles produced at the plant in September 1999 is the new BMW X5 sports activity vehicle.
The entrants had been up in to early hours of the morning in the Hotel car parks cleaning of the muck picked up at various events over the week. The car rally to the Biltmore Estate near Ashville, being one said event. We drove up to the estate. Biltmore is the largest privately owned home in the United States. Completed in 1895, this chateau-styled residence has more than 250 rooms, 65 fireplaces, 43 bathrooms, and 3 kitchens. It is located on 8,000 manicured and landscaped acres. The estate also produces over 75,000 cases of wine per year from more than 200 acres of estate grown grapes. We took the wine tour, which included wine tasting and also had lunch at the unique open-air restaurant.
The turn out for the zymöl sponsored concours d’elegance was fantastic, and at the farewell dinner held that evening the film that BMW NA had produced of the event, and the side show of the Roundel magazine official photographs went on to prove that the whole event was a great success.
This report is just a taster of the events that went on at Oktoberfest 2000. The Trade stands at the Hyatt Hotel, Michelin Safety School, Model Car exhibits, Photo Competition, the many receptions and banquets. Made the 4,000-mile journey to this BMW event worth it. The only disappointment was that no one in our party won one of the 19 BMW M3’s that were given away in the BMWCCA raffle, well you can’t have everything.