After and almost excruciating wait, I finally have her home with me. The Performance Center Delivery is an amazing experience that I can not recommend enough. Here's a little trip report.
I ordered my X6 50i on June 5th. Your CA informs the factory about the PCD and they get back to him with a list of available dates. For me, the first available date was July 21st. About 2 weeks later I received the email from BMW with a "packet" of information including the hotel info, local attractions and what your daily activities will be. They explicitly state not to make any travel arrangements until 3 weeks before your scheduled date. For those that don't know, the PCD experience is completely free to anyone that purchases a new BMW. The only thing you have to do is get there. Once there, BMW covers your dinner the night before, your hotel, breakfast, lunch and transportation to and from the Marriott.
Coming from NY there weren't many options to get into Greenville/Spartanburg (GSP) airport, with just about every single flight connecting to a prop plane in Charlotte and all over $600. There were many options to fly into Charlotte, which is about an hour and half away, and the average fare was $70. I decided to rent a car and just return it at the airport in Spartanburg, cost $40. I later found out from one of the guys in our delivery group that there is a shuttle that runs between the airports for $60 with tip.
When we arrived that the rental car return at GSP I called the Marriot for the shuttle to pick us up. I gave them my name and they said "Oh, BMW delivery customer. We'll be there in 5 minutes in a gold GT." And 5 minutes later a gold Grand Turismo pulls up. I asked the driver if everyone gets this treatment and he said only the PCD people, everyone else gets the shuttle van. BMW supplies the hotel with an X5 and GT just for this.
The Marriott is spectacular. I've been to hundreds of Marriott's all over the world on business travel, and this is by far the nicest of them all. The staff were spectacular, the food was great. We really didn't spend much time there as we got in late and left early.
You are required to be ready to go in the lobby at 7:45 where they have a shuttle van to take you over to the PCD building.
Upon arrival, off to the right you see all the delivery bays, where I got my first look at my new toy!
First thing on the agenda: Driving! First we take a brief intro course with our instructor. I forget his name, but he was awesome.
Then we sign the release forms and we're off to the fleet!
Everyone pretty much got the car they bought except for a woman who got a 550i instead of the 550GT that she purchased, and me, who instead of the X6 50i that I purchased got this:
First this we did was ABS testing on a wet strait, which was a blast.
Then off so slalom and a small race course which was amazing in the X6 M, I really beat the hell out of that thing. It is stunningly fast.
We were out there for nearly 2 hours, and it felt like 10 minutes.
After a quick break, it was delivery time!
Then we had lunch and our instructor asked us if we wanted to go for a hot lap in an M5. How could we refuse?
The hot lap was much longer then the vid, and was incredible. He really showed us what that thing can do. I still can't get the smile off my face.
After that we went on the off road trail in an X5, which was scary as hell at some points. Then off to the factory tour! We were allowed to drive our new cars to the entrance of the building and leave them there for the duration of the tour.
No cameras allowed. It was an hour and half tour, and it was just amazing to see these things getting built. I felt like we were in a terminator movie with all the robots doing their dance and sparks flying everywhere.
On the line, it seemed as if for every 4 or 5 X5's there was one X6. Of the X6's it looked like 95% of them were going overseas as they either had right hand drive, or amber turn signals. What really pissed me off is I saw the side view cameras on a few X6's coming down the line. When I placed my order they told me they wouldn't be available until September production!
So that's it! I can't recommend highly enough for anyone in the US to do the PCD. A "once in a lifetime" experience and probably the most fun I've had in years. Kudos to BMW for such a great time.
