Re: 5er in France

[John Edward Miller <jem@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Got back last night from a business trip to France, mostly southeast of
> Paris. They have some truly interesting roads, not Autobahns, but nobody
> and that means NOBODY drives the 110 to 130 kph limts.
> 
> Traveling along the A4 at 180 kph in a Rover 600 diesel, foot to the floor
> and downhill, I look in the rearview mirror and see a rapidly, really
> rapidly approaching black E39 5er. It screams by me and I look at the
> model number - IT'S A FLIPPIN DIESEL ! ! !  ! doing 150 miles per
> hour...........

No, not quite.  The 525tds runs out of steam about 130.  But it'll run
there pretty happily - and that's as fast as our speed-limited, US-market
540i would go when we did Euro delivery on it back in July.   In two weeks
of driving from Munich through Switzerland, back up through eastern France
to Cologne, then back to Paris I never saw a car doing 150mph.  But plenty
of us were doing 110-125mph...though I tended to restrain myself in France,
not knowing much about local enforcement practices.  Of course, since the
Germans were rebuilding big chunks of the A1 at the time, I also spent a
good bit of Autobahn time doing 20mph.

A huge proportion of cars sold in Europe are diesels.  Mostly turbodiesels
these days - they cast the turbo housings right into the exhaust manifolds.
Remember, diesels are 30% more economical and diesel fuel is still 30%
cheaper in Europe.  

You're lucky the guy left the badges on so you could ID it as a diesel.
Shaving the model badges off is almost de rigeur Over There.  I felt
positively, uh, American running around in a badged 540i.

John.

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