Celebrating BMWs at the Petersen Museum

It’s not too far of a stretch to suggest the Petersen Museum’s BMW Cruise-in, “BMWs and Bretzels,” September 28 was reminiscent of another Southern California icon, Disneyland. No, not in long lines or high-priced food/rides. In this case, it was that sense you get when you enter Disneyland and all of the options and energy overwhelm even the best laid plans. You look left and look right, then look straight and don’t know where to start. As you navigate from one area to the next, you might find yourself just going from ride to ride, enjoying it all, but inevitably not getting to it all.

The Petersen Museum, with its multiple floors of countless temporary and permanent exhibits, is like this daily, but the addition of more than 200 BMWs rolling up the circular ramps to the rooftop parking decks added even more fantastic distractions for everyone. Officially entitled, BMWs and Bretzels, this all-BMW Cruise-in, was much more than a typical Cars & Coffee.

Thanks to the support from BMW NA, the deck also had a stage for a unique chat with racecar driver Bill Auberlen facilitated by BMW’s Tom Plucinky, Head of BMW Classic.  The morning attendees came from a broad range of awareness of various aspects of the BMW community. While the seats were full from the get-go for Auberlen and Plucinsky, as their stories carried over the parking decks, more and more guests gathered, hearing racing stories covering more than 30 years in only the way Auberlen can tell them.

The BMW Car Club of America leadership then took the stage to present longtime volunteer and past almost-every-position Eddy Funahashi with the Friend of the Club honor. Funahashi has been a fixture at virtually any BMW CCA event, meeting, or even thought, so it was no surprise he made the trek from the Central Valley for this event. The surprise, though, was his, saying later, “It seems everyone except me knew this was coming!”

Another Central Valley BMW CCA member, Wayne Wundram, enjoyed the day at the Petersen. “This sure was a great event for the BMW crowd,” says Wundram, no stranger to popular BMW events. He helped found and still manages much of Legends of the Autobahn. “It was great to see presence with Frank Patek and Jason Kazian from the national offices in Greer, South Carolina, plus more volunteers, too,” he continues. “There had to be at least 100 cars in the official display and many more all around. I loved that one-on one talk led by Tom Plucinsky from BMW NA with Bill Auberlen about Bill’s racing history.  And it was great to see Eddy honored with the Friend of the CCA award. Then Tom led a tour through the Peterson museum vault and we got a history lesson about BMW racing with the 3 series cars from 1977 to date.”

Frank Patek agreed. “The Club was delighted to partake in this celebration of BMW NA’s Motorsport history in the midst of our joint year-long effort to honor the 50 Years of the 3-Series,” he says. “It was great to catch up with so many long time CCA members and we are proud to have welcomed a number of new members who joined us today!”

That 50 Years of 3-Series Racing exhibit in the Vault was yet another example of the many things to see at the Petersen. It’s not a large exhibit with ten cars, but each of those cars, especially the eight race cars covering all generations of the 3-Series (and the 4-Series!) sure was impactful.  The racecars were unique, but how many people have seen an E46 M3 GTR street car?  Adjacent to the racecar?  Surrounding a P60 engine freshly pried from its actual crate?  With one of the people responsible for getting those cars in the exhibit? With the winningest driver in American Sportscar history talking about his experience in them? Yeah, that kind of Disneyland. Or Petersenland.

Back up on the parking deck next to the BMW CCA booth, Avants and Hagerty / Radwood also saw great energy from the attendees.  Art Cervantes, Director of Radwood, knows a bit about cool car gatherings. “We [Hagerty / Radwood] were stoked to be at the BMW Cruise-In and support the RADwood Era and beyond,” Cervantes says. “Vehicles of the 80s and 90s are the fastest growing collector car segment—just check out those Monterey Car Week auction results!—and unbeknownst to many RADwood fanatics, Hagerty insures the RADwood Era! Also, BMW’s are the number one brand by volume at RADwood events and the 3-series is also the most popular nameplate of all, followed by the Porsche 911. There is strong nostalgia in the automotive space for BMW’s Motorsport heritage of the RADwood Era including BTCC, DTM, and F1, so it was even more appropriate to have this event while they had the exhibit downstairs.”

Cervantes drove his own rad M Coupe to the event but still had the chance to look around a bit. “My personal favorite car I saw was the immaculate, one of eight agate green E24 M6 with green plaid interior. And also shout out to the owner who took an E30 M3 race car and completely restored it back to street use! Seeing these cars seems like a perfect tune-up for the upcoming Radwood LA October 25^th at the Port of Los Angeles. We’re expecting more than 400 cars including a selection of iconic vehicles from The Petersen to be announced soon!”

That selection might come from some of the other exhibits at the Petersen, too. BMWs are also currently on display in at least the popular “Totally Awesome” exhibit to the Wedge Revolution, and the Alternating Currents exhibit. This added to the many opportunities attendees had this fine Sunday morning.

BMW CCA Pacific Region Vice President James Crivellone came down from Washington state for the event and felt that same energy. “Sunday at the Petersen Museum…let’s see, McLaren F1…CHECK. Gordon Murray S1 LM…CHECK. BMW Turbo Concept…CHECK. And 300-plus BMW enthusiasts taking over the top two floors of the parking garage…also CHECK.”

Crivellone owns a wide range of BMWs, so while a gathering of different cars is not new, this was still extremely rewarding. “What a wonderful day filled with a plethora of BMWs, from 2002s to F90 M5CSs,” he adds. “But the icing on the cake for me was hearing Bill Auberlen talk about his time racing for BMW, from F1 GTRs, M3s, M4s, M2s, and the V12 LMR.  The stories he told were fantastic to hear! Oh, and the pretzels at this BMWs and Bretzels were excellent, too!

For many of the BMW CCA members and attendees, this was the first visit to the Petersen. For others, they had been to this event previous years. While the museum does a great job of rotating exhibits and even cars within exhibits, hosting events like this creates even more reasons to visit.

Petersen Museum Director of Marketing Dan Pilling was seen smiling throughout the active morning. “This is an annual event for us, usually around the time of Oktoberfest,” he explains. “We are incredibly grateful for the partnership with BMW NA and the BMW CCA. They were essential to the success of the event. We strive to host a great event itself, but it was clear some folks did come because of the great BMW representation really on every floor of the museum. The guests had added reason to attend.”

In his role, Pilling sure knows unique cars, but he still enjoyed the mix of cars guests brought. “It was just such a great selection of BMWs from all sorts of eras,” he continues “I compliment the guests that there were so many wonderful BMWs. I did see a second Isetta…we brought out ours on the ramp and then it wasn’t the only one there! There should be an award for that driver for taking that other one through LA traffic!  I was impressed there were three Z8s including one ALPINA example. It’s great to see that those are being driven and not locked up in a collection. Same thing for the 2002s that came out in force, too.”

“I did get educated a bit, too,” he admits. “Tom pointed out two Bavarias, one slightly modified and one seemingly completely original. I have to say I was not aware of the model. Those were fantastic, as was the E9 ALPINA that rolled up, too. Another highlight of this year’s event had to be the one-on-one chat with Tom and Bill Auberlen. That was a great added touch and really gave the guests yet another benefit for the day.”

Pilling joked about the mythical award for braving traffic, but the event did have actual awards. “We have four awards, including a Kids Award,” he says. “They awarded the red E30 M3 with the roll cage. It’s exciting to see them—mostly under twelve years old probably—get enthusiastic about cars. This next generation still has a love for cars! We also present the Petersen Perfection award, a People’s Choice Award, and then Best of Show which went to an incredible taiga green 2002.”

The Wheelers—Steve, Suzanne, Grant, and Grant’s girlfriend Kayla—drove that 1975 2002 more than 50 miles to get to BMWs and Bretzels. “Winning felt really good!” Steve Wheeler says. “We spent about four hours detailing the car on Saturday. I didn’t even know it was judged until we arrived. I was really surprised to win, but people do like that car. We always get compliments.”

“When we heard about this event though the BMW CCA, we knew we should make the trek,” he adds. “Grant, Suzanne, and I visited the museum a few months ago and did the whole tour including the vault, which was really cool, but we knew there’d still be a lot to see. The F1 exhibit is excellent and the Ken Block exhibit is impressive. Yesterday Suzanne and I did see the 80s exhibit. Both of us grew up in the 80s so we could relate. And Grant and Kayla did go into the museum yesterday, too.”

“We really like these unique benefits from the BMW CCA,” Wheeler continues. “We got involved with the Club for the Lyon Air Museum show a few years ago and have renewed every year since. It’s nice to be part of something we’re passionate about. We’ve had BMWs for 25 years now. The 2002 is our 13th. I don’t think we’ll ever leave the brand. I enjoy reading Roundel and BimmerLife. I’m in the save-printed-copy club!

We heard a lot of “Are you still here? I thought you were leaving already!” and “Yep, we’ll be back to see even more at the museum!” With the hundreds of cars covering more than 65 years of BMWs on the parking decks, people can be excused for not getting to all that the museum has to offer.  While the museum will still be there, some of the exhibits won’t be. Time to head back to this automotive Disneyland and see even more of what they have to offer.