The BMW Clubs Australia (BMWCA) AGM this year was productive and some good information and ideas.

Some things to come out of the Sunday group discussions:

·         BMW Drivers Club New South Wales (DCNSW) will run the next Nationals in 2027, proposed to be at Bathurst date to be confirmed, we suggested over or close to the Challenge Bathurst weekend, so there could be some form of Motorsport. See what happens.

·         BMW Classic, BMW Group Australia (BMWGA), BMW Ag and BMW CA all want digital copies of all club's magazine each year but not paper copies.

·         We will be having quarterly Zoom meetings, probably cars only, with the Executive and cars delegates, starting in April

·         BMWCA will be sending out a quarterly magazine and want content.

For issue 1 they want a short history of the club, plus Steve’s story about winning the International Club of the Year Award.

·         Most of the clubs have issues getting and retaining volunteers for events and for committee roles. Some clubs actually pay people to support most of their key roles and are looking at how to reduce their overheads. Some have paid helpers for treasurer, secretary, social media, graphic designer for the magazine to name a few.

·         Common theme is lack of communication from BMWCA about anything, and interaction and sharing of ideas between clubs is lacking. I put as number 1 on our list, as not having the view of other clubs as rivals and we need to work together more.

·         Side discussion with Craig Florence (SA) about the corporate program and how they make new members joining for the BMW Corporate Program ( - to get the 3 year BMW Service Inclusive at no cost offered by BMWGA to BMW club members) to sign up for the three years of the program. Their dealer pays the membership and tacks it onto the price of the car. Something we could look at, or a three-year corporate program option on the membership page, that would have to be taken up if they want a letter confirming membership for the corporate. 

·         All agree it is very hard to run motorsport days without combing with other clubs, cost of track hire etc..

·         Also lack of facilities to use for motorsport and driver training in some states

·         All clubs are supporting Charities in similar ways

·         Most clubs up on membership, 3 or 4 losing a little, membership up as a whole.

Monday:

·         CEO of BMWGA Wolfgang Buechel is very much in favour of having a close relationship with BMW Clubs and now that BMW Classic is under the control of Marketing instead of corporate, we should see a lot more interaction between BMW and clubs.

·         We can request a letter directing BMW Dealerships to engage with and support clubs and it will be signed by the head of BMW Classic.

·         Seems we have come full circle, and BMW recognises we are their best salespeople instead of just consumers. His words were ‘Clubs are more important than ever’

·         BMW no 4 in ev sales last year 7,700 ev’s in Australia

·         BMW sold 29.6% of ev’s sold in Australia: more than Volvo, merc, Audi, Hyundai, GWM, Porsche, Lexus, combined

·         Next generation of batteries will see 900km range coming end of 2025

·         I asked about long term ownership and second/third owners, did BMW have a strategy for long term ownership of ev’s or were they designed to be recycled in say 15 years? Answer was good, BMW batteries can be replaced as modules, so if you have one module fail in 15+ years you can replace the one module at hundreds of dollars instead of the whole battery pack at many thousands of dollars. Current generation batteries are expected to last 15-20 years, even old i3 batteries are still only showing roughly 3% loss of capacity/use, far exceeding what they expected when they built them. Due to the quality of the materials in the batteries they use apparently.

·         All ev m3 next year with 1500+ hp, 4 electric motors and so much torque it can’t be measured, so they reckon. The numbers are ridiculous they reckon, and computers will control everything to keep it on the road. But there will still be an ICE version of every M car as well.

·         1 in 5 BMWs sold in Australia are M cars

·         Very interesting chats at BMWGA with the BMWGA people we saw at Bathurst.  All of them want us to be involved with the GT4 series at Phillip Island in the Speed Series at Phillip 4-6 April, to do a display and support the BMW GT4 cars, apparently going to be 7 racing. No details yet.

·         BMW looking to be even bigger at Bathurst in 2026 and they want a club display up there.  Asked about the possibility of laps on the Monday ride day, they only had 2 cars up there this year, the journalists took all the track time driving the new M3cs touring and M5, next year they said they would have a truck load. Hoping to have some rides to give away. We talked to NSW and Canberra about a club display up there next year. See what they do.

·         Bikes do some training at a place up near Myrtleford that can accommodate cars too. Probably x5’s or X cars, as it is dirt roads to get there. I’d love to do an X drive; this could be an interesting option. Vic Bike club do about 6 training weekends there each year.

·         Most of the bike clubs report that club meetings have transitioned from at someone’s house or business looking at how to fix things on bikes or tune them up to how to diagnose them with a computer and fix electronic issues.

·         Bike sales pretty static in 2024

·         All clubs report membership fees static

·         BMW is allowing Dealerships to hire out floor stocks of bikes for weekend rides, apparently this is huge in Europe.

Clubs International Report

·         BMW Classic now run as part of Marketing Dept

·         Most challenging time for BMW with emission targets coming, so far they are years ahead of the curve, ev sales helping this.

·         You will see more use of heritage cars in BMW ads, and more of a heritage focus and closer ties with clubs.

·         Social media very important to have a presence and link to BMW

·         BMW love Instagram in EU, more facebook in Australia

·         BMW have 9 lawyers chasing trademark infringements and illegal copies of parts but none chasing people or clubs using the roundel wrong.

·         Whilst they frown upon wrong use of the roundel etc, they won’t chase you unless you are making money from it.

·         They have allowed some huge online ‘clubs’ to keep using the BMW name even though they aren’t official clubs, as long as they don’t bring disrepute.

·         50^th anniversary of 3 Series very important to BMW and want us to focus on it.

·         Will run awards for best promotion of 50^th Anniversary

·         BMW Clubs International Council (CIC) put out 2 electronic newsletters a year.

·         New BMW CIC website up and running, but still being built, so some areas not working yet: https://bmwcic.org/

·         BMWCA are starting a quarterly newsletter to go to clubs/members… they want content about major events etc.

·         5^th May is declared the actual 50^th birthday of 3 Series and BMW will be doing 50 Days of the 3 series around that time. We should too.

Summation

·         Overall, a pretty good weekend.

·         We got to drive some cars to teach the clubs about TourBoss, CCV not using it yet, but Tony W wants to. Jo and I took a full ev x2 ixe, I was pretty impressed with it, on the return we had a 118i, comfortable M seats and nice as an introduction to BMW,

·         There were some questions about what happens if BMW stops paying for the licence for TourBoss and some were scared they would get to love it and then be left holding the bill.

·         It was accepted by most though I think.

·         BMW are paying $13500 odd for the corporate licence. An individual club would be way less than that,

BMW Drivers Club Melbourne Inc.

PO Box 81, Tyabb VIC 3913
Incorporated in Victoria #A0102695G
BMW Drivers Club Melbourne Inc is a member of: BMW Clubs Australia and the BMW Clubs International Council
Motorsport Australia Affiliated Motorsport Club