Living the BMW Driving Experience
The title of this article might sound a bit too hard-sell in favor of BMW, but it is simply the name of the German luxury carmaker’s program that aims to teach motorists the dynamics of driving to 1) make them a safer driver and 2) enable them to maximize the performance potential of a car – especially a high-performance one like, well, a BMW.
Sure, any number of much lower priced cars can out-accelerate a BMW sedan. But it’s not in mere point-and-shoot driving where BMW aims to refine driving skills.
In an panic situation, say, a child runs across the street right in the path of your car or you suddenly find a stalled truck parked around a curve just as you negotiate it at high speed, it is best to know exactly what you can do in those circumstances.
In an ideal world, a skilled driver driving a car fitted with the latest sophisticated electronic driving aids such as ABS, DSC (Dynamic Stability Control), DTC (Dynamic Traction Control), EBD (Electronic Brakeforce Distribution) and RFT (Run-Flat Tires) will most likely come out unscathed.
But what about skilled drivers without these driving aids? Or a car equipped with these features but driven by a novice driver? Or worst, a novice driver driving a car without any of these driving aids?
That’s where the BMW Driving Experience comes in. Truth be told, most local journalists who have been covering the motoring beat for at least five years have participated in at least a couple of these events, some conducted by BMW, others by other car companies. (BMW hosts the most number of such events, however.)
Still, it would be foolhardy for any of us to believe that our driving skills can no longer be improved.
Which is why three dozen motoring journos from magazines, broadsheets, TV shows, and web-based media descended upon the BMW Pavilion at the ASEANA Power Station along
After a short video briefing, we were quickly divided into three groups. One group up would do high-speed accelerate-and-brake tests using two 1-series cars (a 118i and the much quicker common-rail diesel-powered 120d), a 320i, and a gorgeous 325i Coupe.
Another group would go through a slalom driving course (to test a car’s handling and balance). This group’s test cars ran the gamut from a 1-series, a 3-series, 5-series, a 7-series (long-wheelbase, no less), an X3 and an X5.
Threading the long, nearly three-ton 7-series through the cones was an exercise in enlightenment. It was simply a testament to BMW’s claims of “Sheer Driving Pleasure” that even a car that a chauffeur would normally be driving can acquit itself so magnificently in such a challenging driving environment.
The third group also ran a slalom, but this was a timed run wherein we would drive two identical cars – one of which had one completely deflated Run-Flat Tire – with the clincher being that we would have to match the time of our earlier run as close as possible while guessing which car had the flat and which of its four tires was the flat one.
It proved easy enough to identify as we could hear the unmistakable moan of a flat tire with our windows opened, especially as we drove around the orange pylons as quickly as possible.
What was harder was to post near-identical times – but mostly because we differed in our driving technique in each pass. The true purpose of this exercise was to demonstrate how a Run-Flat Tire on a BMW can enable it to maintain almost the same performance as one with all four tires properly inflated.
Credit, of course, goes also to the chassis electronics that work with the engine and brakes, adjusting and actuating them as necessary to keep the car from losing control, even in extreme and violent maneuvers.
Speaking of manuevers, what we weren’t prepared for was a thrill ride in the form of an impromptu drifting exhibition (with us in the passenger seat!) of a German instructor behind the wheel of two of the most awesome BMWs to lay long patches of burnt rubber on Philippine streets: a 500-hp V10-powered M5 and a 400-hp V8-powered M3.
The sound of the race-bred V8s and V10s and the seemingly never-ending squeal of expensive ultra-high-performance tires as we hurtled in the two exotic BMWs sideways almost half the time were intoxicating in the extreme.
Sheer driving pleasure, indeed!
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