Matched with BMW's glorious five-speed manual gearbox, as the grand-prize car was, the 323i powers to 60 mph in a claimed 7.1 seconds, just half a second off the pace of its big brother, the 328i. Not bad, for a car that's $6800 less expensive. Gilbert's new ride didn't lack for amenities, with options including leather upholstery, heated seats, Harman-Kardon sound system, on-board travel computer, and sport handling package, all for a bottom line of $38,835-a good deal even if you don't win a Motor Trend sweepstakes.
After overnighting in the lake resort of Lucerne, we headed into the high Alps of Switzerland, again threading through sweeping green valleys lined with jagged, snow-capped peaks. The lofty passes in central Switzerland are rock-strewn, timberless heights with switchback-infested two-laners fighting tortuously up and down either side. From here, you can come face to face with brooding glaciers, cold, thin mountain air, and the spectacular views of Alpine folklore. When the roads are empty, it's a driving enthusiast's fantasy come vividly true.
While growing up in Nicaragua and during the 17 years he'd spent on the plains of Texas, Gilbert had never really considered owning a European car. He bought American and had spent many years behind the wheel of his '85 Pontiac Trans Am, and was now enjoying the functionality of a '96 Chevy Tahoe with no complaints, thank you. But this was something different. The 323i exhibited a responsiveness and nimbleness he hadn't felt before. It handled both the high-speed autobahns and narrow, twisting roads of Europe like...well, it was made for it, all the while, reassuring with a feeling of confidence and, yes, pure unadulterated driving fun. So, he now understood, this is why people drive BMWs.
The following morning found us in a gondola, rising slowly out of the small ski town of Zermatt and staring up as fierce, high-altitude winds stripped the Matterhorn of its thick cloak of clouds and laid bare some of the most breathtaking peaks this side of a Sierra Club calendar. It was a fitting farewell before leaving the Alps.
The route we'd chosen was only about 500 miles from BMW's delivery center in Munich (where you can pick up your own new BMW, tour Europe, ship it home, and save approximately 10 percent of the sticker price, to boot!) to our ending point in Stresa, a lakeside resort in northern Italy. Yet our meandering route through five countries (including the postage-stamp monarchy of Liechtenstein, which took less than 20 minutes to traverse) easily consumed the better part of a week. Stresa is a place of ease and grandeur, where a person's blood pressure can take a well-earned holiday. Still, the final highlight of the trip-a visit to Pirelli's Vizzola proving grounds-was anything but relaxing. Vizzola, the company's sophisticated engineering facility located northwest of Milan, is where Pirelli does most of its wet-traction testing. Due to the graciousness of our hosts, Gilbert had the run of the course for the morning, and eagerly put some BMWs shod with P6000s to work on both a wet slalom and figure-eight handling course, quickly gaining greater appreciation for their impressive wet-traction performance, while encountering real-time lessons in how to avoid hydroplaning. Then, for a never-to-be-forgotten finale, veteran Pirelli test driver Paolo Tenchini waved Gilbert into a high-performance BMW M5 for a series of hot laps.
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