A Sunday drive through Munich seems like a great way to see the city, and we had booked exactly that with BMW City Tours. This three hour adventure is hosted by BMW and uses classic cars from their collection.

We began the morning with a quick taxi ride to BMW Welt – the company’s showcase building across from the factory and museum.

If you take delivery of your BMW in Munich direct from the factory you can sip champagne in an upstairs bar and watch your car come up a glass elevator to be parked on a turntable in the central display area. New owners have been known to cry when this happens. You will need to know this in another two or three paragraphs.

After visiting BMW Welt we crossed the street and checked in at the museum for our tour. Still a bit early, we took a quick lap through the museum – more about that in the other post page about the BMW museums. Our tour cars showed up outside to a gathering crowd. We met the other six guests and our three drivers, and they introduced us to the three cars: a 1952 502 with a V8, a 1937 335 “Model Autobahn” and a 1936 326, all convertibles.

We’d get a chance to ride in all three but opted to begin in the 1952 502. The first leg was through BMW Welt. We drove across the street, entered through the delivery gate underneath, and drove over to the elevator.

Then this happened:

We took a couple laps around inside and then headed down a ramp and out the front of BMW Welt. From there we drove through the factory – no pictures were allowed, but it was closed on Sunday so we only saw the outsides of buildings.

The next stop was at BMW’s private Classics Collection. I made a separate post for that stop with lots of pictures. We spent about an hour inside and were the only people there, so the tour was quite intimate and filled with wonderful stories about each car. There were a few empty spaces in the collection – when we asked where one of the cars was our guide responded, “That’s the car you rode over here in.” All the cars in the collection are not only fully operational, but they drive them all at tours and events.

The next car we rode in was the 1937 335 “Model Autobahn.” It has a six cylinder 2L engine with about 75-80hp. The ride was silky smooth.

The weather turned so we had to ride with the tops up for the rest of the tour. That was fine for us, but not a nice for our guides who had to push the 1936 326 a few times to bump start it. The car has an extra fan in the engine compartment to help cool it during stop and go city driving – that fan is also a big drain on the battery.

Our final stop before returning was at the BMW Showroom in Lenbachplatz. This showroom has their latest models, a few displays and a lounge area. Everything you’d expect except salesmen – you can’t actually buy a car there. I loved the “frozen bronze” matte paint job on a new 6 Series they had – really stunning.

We rode back to the museum in the green 1936 326, and luckily didn’t have to get out and push.

I’d recommend this tour to any car lover. The chance to ride around in these classics, to see behind the scenes of BMW Welt, a private tour of their Classics Collection – it was all wonderful. As importantly, our guides were great, too. They all did this for fun – BMW hires only students and police officers for the job (we didn’t really understand the police officer connection there). One of our guides had worked for BMW for a number of years and had just completed his MBA – he was waiting to hear if he got the job there that he’s applied for.

From the museum we caught a taxi, raced back to the hotel to pick up our bags and went to the train station. We had an hour ride to Stuttgart for another great car day tomorrow, walked around the downtown area a bit to get oriented, had dinner at a steak place and called it a day.

More pictures from the tour: