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Vroom!

In December, 1998 I bought myself a new car, a 1999 BMW 540iA Sport. I bought it from Dean Matlock at Allison BMW in Mountain View, CA, and ordered the car through BMW's European Delivery program. Though it's a full US (California) specification car, I took delivery of it in Munich, Germany. By doing so, it became a used car prior to being imported into the US. This cut the value and import duty on the car substantially. BMW passes these savings along to the buyer, more than covering the cost of a trip to Germany. (I also have a page with more pictures of the trip to Germany.)

Here's more about the car:

• Pictures of my car

I do a lot of photography, and naturally I've taken some pictures of my magnificent car. Check it out.

• Modifications

I haven't made many changes to the car, but you might be interested in how I installed a flashlight and a fire extinguisher by the driver's seat. Be careful about making similar modifications; if you don't know exactly what you're doing, you could cause permanent damage to your car. (Most recent addition: how to install a Valentine One radar detector.)

• Exploring the E39 OBC

  The on-board computer in the E39 540i knows many things about the car that it won't normally tell you. Here's a step-by-step procedure for accessing some of this additional information. Use extreme caution with this procedure! You could do bad things to your car. If you don't know what you're doing, don't do it.

• BMW USA's 5-Series Web pages

Here's the information on the 540 straight from the source. This link goes to BMW USA. See also the BMW worldwide 5-series pages.

• Ben Liaw's BMW links page

  A great guide to BMW resources on the Internet.

• BMW 5-Series Message Board

  There are other message boards and mailing lists for BMW cars, but this is the one I like best. It's dedicated to the current E39-model 5-Series cars, it's easy to use, and doesn't fill up your mailbox with spam.

• A Day at the Races

  If you don't like sophisticated German cars with leather upholstery, or think that 302 horsepower isn't really enough fun, you just might like NASCAR. I spent an afternoon with the Richard Petty Driving Experience driving a real NASCAR race car at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and you can too.

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