{"id":3,"date":"2013-12-15T00:38:36","date_gmt":"2013-12-15T00:38:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.msportvintage.com\/?p=3"},"modified":"2013-12-19T16:01:29","modified_gmt":"2013-12-19T16:01:29","slug":"whats-this-all-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.msportvintage.com\/?p=3","title":{"rendered":"How This Blog Came to Be- Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"motorsport1980\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I am fortunate enough to own and race several vintage BMW\u2019s. These include- a 1935 BMW 315\/1 Special known as the \u201cWillis Wonder,\u201d a 1961 BMW 700S, a 1965 BMW 1800Ti, a 1972 BMW 2002, and a 1973 BMW CSL from the championship Luigi BMW team from 1976-77.<\/p>\n

Let me tell you a little about myself and how I got to this point in my automotive obsession.<\/p>\n

I was born in Minnesota, longer ago than I will admit to. All the while I was growing up my father owned car dealerships of one sort or another.<\/p>\n

His first dealership sold British motor cars- MG’s, Allards, Morris Minors, and Jaguars. I still have vivid memories of riding in the back of Morris Clubman wagons with all that beautiful wood and shiny chrome.<\/p>\n

\"archiewalker_minneapolis_mn\"<\/a>
A dealer sticker from my Father’s VW dealership.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the mid-50’s he took on VW,. It was just at the time that they were becoming popular. He had a great deal of success with them, and soon dropped the British cars, all except Land Rover, which still sold well in Minnesota. He also added Porsche to his line-up. He sold this dealership in the mid-60’s, and at the time it was the largest servicing VW dealership in the country.<\/p>\n

After selling the VW dealership he became the midwest distributor for BMW. His territory included MN, ND, SD, IA, WI, and IL. He spent his time traveling throughout the mid-west signing up dealers for this ‘new’ German marque.<\/p>\n

The importer, Max Hoffman, had a reputation for cutting out his distributors once they had a dealership network up and running. His reputation was well earned, and soon my father was left with just his dealership outside of Minneapolis.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>
This is the service area from my Father’s BMW\/Mercedes dealership just west of Minneapolis. It was taken in the mid-1960’s.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At this dealership he handled BMW’s, Mercedes, and Land Rovers. Other lines came and went, including Renault, Peugeot, Jensen, and NSU. He ran this dealership until the mid-70’s when he retired and moved to a ranch in Idaho.<\/p>\n

During these years I was always around his dealerships working as a lot boy, working in the parts department, or wherever else I could. I became a pro at cleaning off cosmoline from the new cars and doing PDI’s.<\/p>\n

Hanging around my Father’s dealerships also gave me a chance to drive some pretty fun and exotic cars- Cobras, Vettes, Sunbeam Tigers, Porsches, MBs, all the BMWs, Jensens, and even Wankle powered NSU Spyders. It was a great time to be a young man growing up \u00a0around cars!<\/p>\n

More to come in my next post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  I am fortunate enough to own and race several vintage BMW\u2019s. These include- a 1935 BMW 315\/1 Special known as the \u201cWillis Wonder,\u201d a 1961 BMW 700S, a 1965 BMW 1800Ti, a 1972 BMW 2002, and a 1973 BMW CSL from the championship Luigi BMW team from 1976-77. Let me tell you a little … Continue reading How This Blog Came to Be- Part 1<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about","category-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.msportvintage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.msportvintage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.msportvintage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.msportvintage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.msportvintage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.msportvintage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79,"href":"http:\/\/www.msportvintage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3\/revisions\/79"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.msportvintage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.msportvintage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.msportvintage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}