Journey With The Old 1991 Bmw 325i Series
The final stretch going into Munich felt like victory. Here we were on the famous autobahn with little old Percy, all our kit still piled high just bombing it down there, music cranking. Suddenly Percy turned the corner and suddenly I realized: oh man, there is my car. It's made it. I'm so proud of you man.
I think at that point I certainly realized that you know, we've done something quite special for 1991 Bmw 325i Specs. That was magic man. That was great. That's how we do adventure! Mike's like a second father to me and he has really helped, helped out a lot. He was a test pilot and actually flew in the air force with my father. But was in a serious accident in 1990. One of the things I noticed first when I got out of hospital was: how the hell do I get around? I need to get a car. It was the thing in a way that gave me my freedom back more than anything else after my accident. Percy essentially provided mike with the opportunity to regain his vigour for life. I had it a long time, aye, it was 24 years.
You know, eventually, I can't keep this car forever you know: 400,000 K's. I'm like: do you want to sell it? he's like: no! So do you want to give it away? he's like: there's nobody really that I could give it away to. For a few years I had actually thought well, this 1991 Bmw 325i needs to go home. And so I had to try and find somebody I think I could challenge into taking this car back to Germany. I was sitting with him and I was like: yes me, pick me, I'll do it! And so, well there we had a deal.
Driving Through Africa
With a glass of wine or beer at the end we had a deal. He came straight home to me, walked into my room and said: max we've got to drive through Africa. I said: what?! The guys said: hey, you want to take Percy back to Germany? you know, drive through Africa. I said: when are we leaving? and that was it. That was the start and the end really. We had a vehicle that we wanted to deliver to Germany. 17 countries.
We had given ourselves three and a half months to do it. It's obviously a sedan car, low ground clearance, there's no 4x 4 involved none of us were mechanics. So we didn't know what was going to happen to us we didn't know what was going to happen between us. It was definitely an insane idea to begin with from the start. When we left from cape town we chose a road that goes along this place called Ben’s cliff pass. I just remember that night there I was just chilling out on the roof, looking up at the stars and I was like: this is day one, you know we are doing this thing. We've left, there's no going back.
We're on the road with The 1991 Bmw 325i. We headed up towards Botswana, it was about 800 K's and then into the north tip of Zimb near Victoria falls. That was such a magical experience to go there and experience this raw power of nature. Zambia is quite, quite a large country and I think it took us 5 to 6 days to cross. The first time got a glimpse of lake Malawi was when we hit a peak going through a bit of a junglish road and there was this beautiful sunset and this massive expanse of water. We were camping there right on the beach.
There was a massive sense of achievement having crossed Africa with The 1991 Bmw 325i. That was about 3 months into the trip and the end of Africa signified that we were definitely in the final chapters of our story. We arrived in Greece sort of early July . From Greece we moved up into Macedonia so from Macedonia we went up into Serbia and then into Hungary and then the final leg, hey, Austria to Germany one day straight into Munich, boom. I told mike I would do this. I told max and rowan that they need to give up their jobs and a portion of their lives to do this.
There was just an immense weight off my shoulders. Suddenly I realized: damn it, these guys are actually going to get there. I flew the whole night to get here and this car drove here in 3 months. I'm so damn proud of you, man. It's a pretty cool thing to see the car just arrive in a city on another continent that's 10, 000km away from where it started and it drove there, every single kilometer. Hey guys, so here we are, we made it to Munich as you can see behind us, we are at the world of BMW.
There's Percy, and we got some big beards to show, this is how it got. We were originally planning to recycle the car. They actually took us on a great tour through the recycling facility and they did it with a BMW 1 series. It was quite incredible to see. They’ve got a machine that essentially rips the engine and gearbox out of the car. They dismantled this car in 15 minutes where they actually gutted it like a fish. We all were just dumb struck and quiet. Mike was there and we were all like looking at each other, thinking: jeez, we really actually don't want this to happen. No, not going to happen. I don't know what happened there, if someone saw us and just. Or you know whatever someone had an idea somewhere in there.
They just came up to us and said: guys, we actually really like your car would you mind if we keep it in the museum instead of recycling it? yeah of course, for sure man. That's where it's going to go. I'm just so pleased that something done in a way so innocently, as fun you know can have an impact on people. Small things can become big things. That challenge that ian set: okay, if I drive to Germany you're going to get your flying license back. I mean my goal with the aero plane is to fly around Kilimanjaro in it. It was just the push I needed. If you knew him you could see: it was one of the biggest achievements he had done in his life with The 1991 Bmw 325i. And here it is: boom, mike back in the air, where he's meant to be. That's cool.