BMW Museum

On Friday I met up with my brother and we hopped on the U-bahn to go to the BMW museum (on the recommendation of my friend from the UK who's a bit of a beamer buff). The BMW museum is pretty easy to find. It's not that huge of a place but they have some interesting displays. The cars of course, but I also liked the engine displays. I also had something of an ulterior motive. I bought for my car a mobile phone cradle that powers up your phone when it's in there and also is supposed to boost up the signal (it has some connection to the shark fin on the roof). When I had my Motorolla Razr phone I bought a snap-in adaptor designed for that phone. Then when I switched to the iPhone 3G, of course I had to go get a new snap-in adaptor. But they hadn't made one yet. So I've been waiting for about a year for production to catch up. Then when I saw they were available on the BMW accessory web page, I saw mention of them fitting in 2009 models, which kind of left it vague whether there was a 3G adaptor for the 2008 (what I have). So at the Museum we asked for a nearby dealership and went to find out. They had one, so now I have a functional keepsake that ended up costing me about $50 less than what it would have in the states. I can't wait to snap it in at the airport at home.

I'm not sure which BMW model that is in the picture, and I also failed to take a snap of the description of the engine, but I believe that engine is similar if not the same as the one in my car. Those two large aluminum-looking cans at bottom-left—are those the twin turbos? I think they may be, as I believe the little turbines (impellers?) get driven by the hot exhaust gas, spinning up to draw in air into the combustion chamber. But it's a bit of a guess, I'm not terribly knowledgeable about engines. Another thing to note on this engine: there's no large cooling fan at the front. Interesting, no? I read on the placard that it's an electronically cooled engine. Guess there must be a pump somewhere to push the coolant around.

Here's a neat-looking racer. GT? LeMans? I'm not sure. It looks like a generation older than mine, all souped up though I'm sure. I bet it'd be fun to drive. Later on that day we were commenting on cars and I noted that it's a shame that in the US while you can buy 'em, you can't really run 'em very fast. Unless maybe you go to a track or something. I wish we could have Autobahn-like stretches of the US interstate highway system so that we could try out top speeds. My brother was talking about maxing out his Audi. Sounds like fun, wish I could try my beamer out like that.