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| | Bimmer Magazine
'02
Fest West - Another bash, but just for the cheeky box. | | | 
| Who are these people? They converge at a small park in San Luis
Obispo, California with small cars and small parts, and can't stop
talking about heads, carbs, door panels, where to find two-piece
dashboards and all things that go somewhere called NLA. (Parts
actually go NLA – no longer available – from BMW suppliers. So,
really, NLA isn't somewhere, it's nowhere. The lack of location; an
existential uncertainty of objects that become anti-matter;
nothingingness; the very real loss of tangible material with no
assurance it will ever be found again. For these people, that's a
tragedy.)
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| You landed on planet 2002, where old BMWs seem to show up like
vultures at fresh roadkills. Stick around long enough, and you might
catch an irreversible disease that grips your previously normal
senses and twists them into believing unholy things. Like
one-thousand two-hundred dollars is an acceptable price to pay for a
15-pound steering box that quickens a 2002's steering, but really
makes it almost too darty for normal street use.
Alternatively, you could contract a fever that has you
thinking anything under two thousand bucks is normal for a rare old
5 –speed close –ratio transmission that assuredly needs
rebuilding, and even on its best day, shifted just slightly more
precisely than a drunken sailor on shore leave in New Orleans.
Sounds like our kind of party. About 400 others thought so, too.
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| Event founder, Rob Torres of 2002 Haus (located, you guessed it,
in San Luis Obispo, and in cyberspace at www.2002haus.com) has
gotten off on a good foot starting the '02 Fest West, largely
because so many 2002s survive in California. In fact, there are
probably more 2002s living in California today than anywhere else,
including Germany. So San Luis Obispo, at exactly halfway between
California's two major cities – Los Angeles and San Francisco –
makes the perfect location for a festival for 2002 freaks.
A field of 123 show cars (97 2002s, 40 of which were tii models,
plus other BMWs) was joined by formal sessions on engine building by
Midwestern transplant Jack Fuhana and one on restoration by Carl
Nelson of La Jolla Independent.
Next year, Torres has a few changes in store. “We many hold a
dedicated swap meet in the spring of 1999, and follow that with a
spring fling, incorporating autocross, TSD rally and possibly a
funkhana,” says Torres. And the 99 '02 Fest West itself is already
set for August 7th.
Be there if you want a little dose of the '02 disease.
-- Jim Resnick
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