Congratulations to this week’s BMW CCA Garage Goals winner, Delaware Valley Chapter member Chris Holliday! Chris has won a $25 Shop BMW CCA gift card and a $25 Griot’s Garage gift card thanks to this picture of his Z3 M Coupe and 323i Touring with an S54!
“We have been in mandatory stay-at-home like everyone else since mid-March, until this morning, so I’ve only been out for shopping and some therapeutic drives,” said Chris. “My entertainment has been those drives, usually with one or a small number of “socially-distanced” BMW friends. It has really helped restore motivation, even if done only a handful of times in the almost three months quarantined. As a car nut, I focused non-work time in the garage, almost exclusively on the Z3. It benefited with thorough detailing and waxing. I actually ordered a bunch of Griot’s Garage potions and really appreciated how well they worked on that car. Finally, last weekend, I installed a Stromung exhaust on the Z3 and I must say, I am very happy with the results. It looks like I will be able to enjoy some car events this weekend, now that we are no longer required to stay home. She’ll be all cleaned up and ready!”
Asked what got him to join the BMW CCA, Chris said, “We joined the Delaware Valley BMW CCA chapter at that time for the magazine. We went to a few barbecues and picnics and got to meet some excellent folks and see some lovely cars! We started friendships then that endure and have benefited my family since that time in ways I could not have predicted, from the architect who designed our home renovation to the BMW-related businesses that keep my twenty-plus-year old fleet much more interesting to me than any current new car showroom offering. While our chapter has always had a strong emphasis on track based events, and I have done several of them, we really enjoy the social and road driving rallies, destination drives, scavenger hunts, and the possibility of meeting new people at them.”
Tell us more about your Z3 M Coupe and 323i Touring! “These are the newest cars in my fleet—except the 2016 Mini that my wife drives!—so you can see that I’m partial to the “turn of the century” period in BMW car evolution. The Z3 M Coupe was always a riveting design for me and the Evergreen color is something I cannot take my eyes off of. I learned of the car’s purity of purpose when I bought my first one in 2015, a “dealer spec” silver over black with 80k miles. The driving experience is that of a for-wheeled motorcycle and there is just nothing else from any other maker that does that for me. This one was a lucky find about two-and-a-half years ago and was sitting lightly used in a garage in Springfield, Massachusetts. With the support of my amazing wife, we decided to buy it within five minutes of discovering its availability, and brought it home. It had 29,000 miles on it and every single one of the 6,500 “s”miles we’ve put on it have been fun, adventure miles, including one trip (so far) to North Carolina to run the ridges with the ZSCCA “Schuh Syndikat” crowd. It is over maintained and kept completely OEM, except for the aforementioned exhaust (Gumby needs a “voice”), and a Zionsville aluminum hardened engine cooling system to address a known vulnerability. I retain every original piece the car came with when it left Spartanburg for the next owner, but this car will be with me until I cannot physically drive it anymore.
“The E46 is my “Frankenbimmer”. It is a Sport Package 323i Touring with the heart of an E46 M3: S54, six-speed, subframes, driveline, brakes and my preferred, lower-key “ZCP level” body and suspension treatment, rather than the full wide body M3. I’ve always preferred “station wagon” car bodies, (previous cars: VW Squareback, VW Passat Variant VR6, and EZ15001—my first E46 Touring, a RWD, sport package five-speed) but I’d longed for a Touring with the heart of the last and best naturally aspirated BMW inline-six from the E46 M3 (engine sound matters a lot to me as well as performance). I found this car, which was professionally built by the founder of Kassel Performance, also in upstate Massachusetts, in early 2019, and brought it home. It spent most of the coronavirus pandemic stay-at-home period at one of our fine local body shops (again, that BMW CCA network), receiving a gratuitous, full body, windows-out fix up and repaint. It is now the “332i Touring” that BMW should have built. It returned to its home garage yesterday and its presence back in the garage motivated the picture as I am so pleased to have “the fleet” back home. These cars are merely things, but they have enabled us to meet people and enjoy adventures to become some of our favorite times.”
“Oh yes, those plates. Since our local Delval chapter had set up the special plate program with the State of PA, and since one day, we received notice that we could get them customized, I figured all that empty real estate on single number plates looked cool and would be impossible to get by a “regular person”, but why not try. Sometimes, all you have to do is ask. Might turn out no one else before you ever had!”
As always, thank you, Chris, for your support of the club—and for your participation in our BMW CCA Garage Goals giveaway on Instagram.
Want to win $25 Gift Cards from Shop BMW CCA and Griot’s Garage?
We will be awarding a lucky BMW CCA member a $25 Shop BMW CCA gift card and a $25 Griot’s Garage gift card every Friday! For a chance to win, all you have to do is post a picture to Instagram with the hashtags #BMWCCAGarageGoals, #GriotsGarage, and follow @GriotsGarage.
It will be a fun way for members to share their garage setups, what they’ve been working on, and what’s in their BMW fleet. Maybe you just finished putting a new coat of Griot’s Garage wax on your M3 or added some vintage BMW memorabilia to your garage wall. We want to see what you’ve been up to and share the passion! It will be a fun way for us to stay connected and interact while many of us are spending more time at home and in the garage.
We’ll announce the winner on Instagram, Facebook, and BimmerLife every Friday. Good luck, everyone!—Chris Hennecy
