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Miata

Miata Road Trip Europe: Munich, Germany

Few things have brought me so much joy lately than my Mazda MX-5 Miata hobby. And as part of that experience I’ve been attempting to organize Miata events wherever I travel. There’s so much passion and camaraderie among owners the world over it’s fascinating and I hope I can continue meeting as many of these wonderful and authentic individuals as I can.

On my trip to Munich in September 2019 I got to meet two incredible Miata owners. One a former fighter jet pilot and another a project manager for BMW Motorcycle division that took me on a whirlwind tour of his city showing me a bunch of cool stuff to take in from the passenger seat of several of his Miata’s.

So before saying another word I must express my gratitude to Andreas and Maxime for their wonderful hospitality. Thank you so much for meeting up with me and for sharing your passion. I truly appreciate the opportunity. Danke schön!

We met up, appropriately enough, at the BMW Weld across from the famous BMW world HQ and their super neat museum which I wrote about in the previous post. After a nice chat over drinks we got to check out BMW’s latest Motorcycles on display in the facility where Max gave us some detailed pointers on the project he’s been working on. My mind was blown. Not often do I get to meet such amazing people that save for a common little convertible hobby our paths would not have probably otherwise crossed.

Max brought his Miatini project to show me around town. A white NA Miata, heavily modified to live up to this nostalgic Martini heritage livery, to hoon me around town… err show me around. At some point through our journey we switched to his latest acquisition a British Racing Green NA Miata, while driving by his Red NA parked at his home… yes! this man owns Three (3) Miata’s and they all look pristine. Lucky fella!

Love the custom stickers: “Shnell” ala Shell and OMG! ala OMP etc.

Notice the “Wheels & Weisswurscht” sticker above, akin to the “Cars & Coffee” idea stateside. The weißwurst is a famous German, specifically from Bavaria region white sausage that is traditionally eaten for every meal including breakfast. Stateside we may be much more familiar with another German sausage the bratwurst.

Also in the top right picture: it is so crazy to me how Mazda covered up the beautiful MOMO logo on the racing steering wheel with a rubber piece that has Mazda stamped on it.

My favorite part of this meet up besides the opportunity to chit chat and experience a very properly sorted Turbo Miata, was the sightseeing opportunity around Munich. MX5 is the best vehicle to see a new city and here was no exception. It was becoming very evident to me how much of this town is run by BMW. We even stopped by a few places like the BMW Motorsport division building and the BMW Classic Museum. Both were closed on the weekend but just peeking through the windows to spy what they got inside was cool enough for me. Luckily nobody called the Polizei on us.

Always cool to sneak a peek at some camouflaged models parked around the back of the BMW ///M division building…

As nice as the “new” official BMW Museum was, this one looked like it had a lot more interesting stuff inside. Apparently the facility is used for storage and restoration of classic cars as well. Obviously the BMW M1’s Procar caught my eye, but Max pointed out a BMW X5 suv in the hall powered by a V12 race engine – The X5 Le Mans concept. Yowza!

Some other cool concepts inside include a BMW Z1 shooting brake, with it’s driver door slid down on the top photo below.

And the BMW 507 Bond car in the front window.

We even got to visit a local Mazda dealership where they had several MX-5’s on offer. Germany, for some reason, is very fond of this little Japanese roadster and it’s proven by the large and rather active community throughout the country. I nearly got a chance to meet up with a friend of Max during my time in Stuttgart however it didn’t quite work out. Though it would have been nice to have had a chat in person with a Porsche project manager while exploring the Porsche Museum, which again I wrote about in a previous post.

As usual the most distinctive feature of an NA Miata is it’s pop-up headlights which are a big hit with the local kids… notice how they wave as Max salutes them in the picture below.

Lovely experience and I would highly recommend other owners consider doing the same on their travels for business or vacation. You never know who you’ll get to meet.

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