144B suffered a setback courtesy of I-40 in New Mexico. Just east of Tucumcari around 4am Mountain, the M5 lost pressure in a rear tire. Given that the spare in the car was for the front and wouldn’t clear the rear Brembo caliper, Alex, Liz and Andrea had no choice but to call for a flatbed to haul the Interceptor into Amarillo, Texas for a tire change. We’ll update you as soon as they’re back on the highway. In the meantime, are they brave enough to tackle the 72-oz. steak?
UPDATE: As of 13:27 CDT, the crew was back on the road, across the Texas Panhandle and headed for Oklahoma City.
I’ve left New York. What started as a ten-day trip to hammer out some business with Alex turned into five weeks of sleeping on his blue velour sectional, plenty of brainstorming, a ton of new friends and adventures the wooly world of startups that I couldn’t conceive of when I boarded that eastbound redeye in Sacramento over 4th of July weekend. But come to an end it has. We’re off to Monterey in 144B. We’ve enlisted the talents of Autoblog’s resident Northern California boy, Damon Lavrinc, to handle additional driving duties. We’re also attempting to warp the poor man’s brain. We’ve never attempted a driveplan that involved meeting an airline flight before, but that’s exactly what we’ll be attempting this time when we pick up Liz Moses.
She claims that she’ll bring some much-needed sense to the proceedings, but we’re a bit curious as to how much sense anyone who hitches a ride in a fake German police car crewed by a bald man, a bearded man and a blogging man could possibly have. Nevertheless, we intend to make our trek a memorable one. We’ll be broadcasting live video from Seero, as well as putting together one of our signature maps. We’ll be ruminating on the nature of driving in today’s America, passing through hamlets large and small as we travel the entire length of Interstate 80 — from the George Washington Bridge in New York to the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, then tooling down 101 through Silicon Valley and south to Steinbeck Country — where we’ll take in the goings on during what’s internationally recognized as the most fantastic collection of automotive events in one weekend. If you call yourself a car guy and haven’t made it to Monterey, mark your calendars. And once you experience it, you’ll want to come back every year.
After a heated battle with Lamborghini pilot and Bullrun veteran Bill Wu, Team Arbuckle, in their lightly massaged 2004 BMW 330Ci, arrived first into the Rancho Santa Fe checkpoint with Wu right on their tail. Third was nailed by Ashley Van Dyke and Eric Ward, who took a different route from HRE Wheels shop (where Arbuckle also arrived first) in Vista to the palatial spread north of San Diego. Next stop? Qualcomm Stadium and then on to the Ivy Hotel in downtown SD.
Called forth to the Nutmeg State by an error of prescience and/or gross misjudgment, Team Polizei will be out in force at tomorrow’s Greenwich Concours d’Elegance. In conjunction with Alex’s selection as the marquee speaker at Saturday’s dinner, we’ll be displaying Polizei Interceptor 144B and the super-secret BMW-engineered Gepäck 144 (courtesy of Manhattan MotorCars) Come wish us a hearty "Guten Tag!" (And by all means, bring Löwensenf!) Plenty of rare and vintage iron from all eras of motoring will be showcased at the event, which promises to be a cracking good time. As proceeds benefit Americares, we encourage you to visit early and often.
While the superiority of the E39 M5 has been proven by Team Polizei ad infinitum, ad nauseum, ad perineum und ad pancreas, some individuals and law enforcement agencies seem to inexplicably hew to other ideas when it comes to the platonic ideal of the police cruiser. Jalopnik’s Matt Hardigree put it out there for readers to decide, and a number of the site’s commenters seem to agree with our choice. Blind copycats or individuals who truly understand that late-’90s Bavarian thinking created what remains the ne plus ultra of scofflaw deterrance and capture? You make the call.
This morning, while loading up 144b for the first leisurely stage of our mini-trek to Atlanta, we noticed a blue Law & Order: Criminal IntentEconoline parked in front of Team Polizei’s base of operations and didn’t think much of it — especially since the vehicle’s sole occupant seemed thoroughly unimpressed with our swift steed of justice and mirth. Having realized that we required a few more essential supplies, Kommandant Roy popped upstairs while Johnson luxuriated in the Manhattan chill with a cylindrical tobacco product. Herr Roy suddenly emerged from Polizei HQ and exclaimed, "I love you man!" in Johnson’s general direction. When Johnson replied in the return affirmative, Roy pointed over his co-pilot’s shoulder and indicated that the object of his affection was in fact on the other side of the Interceptor, surveying the array of sophisticated electronics. Who was the Polizei’s newest fan?
The New York International Auto Show brings together automotive enthusiasts of every stripe and level of interest. Hardy souls journeyed from as far afield as Austria, Sweden and Virginia to check out Polizei Interceptor 144B and chat about our jovial, demented brand of law enforcement. Sadly, inevitably, some folks were either ill-informed about the goings-on in the automotive world or — at the extreme end of things — complete and utter dunderheaded Ostrogoths when it came to cars, the law and life and how to live it. Of Visigoth persuasion ourselves — especially Mme. Lau — we enjoyed a few hearty chuckles at their expense. Come along, won’t you, and peruse our list of sublime, stupid, and outright head-scratch-frenzy-inducing quotes from the show after the jump.
