Today was obviously never going to be our most adventurous day of the roadtrip, but it still felt like quite an event bringing the ’66 from its 47 years in Sweden over the Oresunds bridge and into its new life in Denmark.
And while it was just a short drive over a bridge, it was also – at least seen from a practical point of view – the whole point of our last five days of driving. We had just about reached our goal now.
But before making this short – yet very symbolic – drive, we of course had to allow the Derby 1600-2 a moment to say its good-byes properly to Sweden. We took her for a spin through some of the more charming areas of Malmo City and ended up at a view point near the Oresunds bridge for a quick photo shoot.
We headed across the Oresunds bridge with a slightly tense feeling of anticipation. What a massive trip it had been, and now we had just about reached our destination. The 47 year old BMW had held together! And not just that, but she had absolutely spoilt us with her charm and lovely driving characteristics, and had offered us an experience of a lifetime. As we passed the road sign on the middle of the bridge that read “DENMARK” both Paul and I spontaneously broke out in laughter – what a sensation! We hit Danish ground and only some 10km later, the trip counter rolled from 999 to 000 for the second time on our roadtrip. Again, Paul and I just couldn’t hold back our feelings – absolutely unbelievable!! 2000km covered in six days in a classic that we really had no way of knowing whether or not she would be up for the job. We were both totally ecstatic…
We had made it to Denmark, but we also still had a few hours to spare before Paul needed to check-in for his flight from Copenhagen to Stansted. The adventure didn’t have to stop quite yet. We headed north of Copenhagen to my mate Michael Stegmann in Vedbaek who always has a nice collection of goodies tucked away in his garage. He had just finished building an evil BMW 2002 for the Youngtimer Cup in Denmark. From the outside everything looked very authentic, but the glass fiber hood hid a 2.3-litre S14 engine from an 80’s BMW M3, only tuned further to north of 250hp and including both a carbon fiber induction box and dry-sump oil system! This beast of a 02 was sharing garage space with a couple of longhood 911’s, early 911 Turbos, a Alfa-Romeo Montreal and even a Heinkel bubble car and two Honda Dax. Boys toys…
Paul and I headed back down Copenhagens coastal road, enjoying the lovely weather and the last few kilometers we would cover together in the Derby ’66. As we pulled into the drop off zone at Copenhagen Airport the little 1600-2 had covered another 130km today bringing the total up to a whopping 2066km.
I was originally meant to continue driving another 300km straight to Herning to drop off the ’66 at “AutoGalleriet” where my other 02’s live. However, in the 11th hour I managed to arrange a few days extra in Denmark, so I’ll spend some time with family and also try to attend a couple of classic car meets with the ’66. I’ll still drive the 1600-2 to AutoGalleriet on Sunday, but this break in events means that the roadtrip in effect comes to an end here. Not only am I over the moon about the little ’66, but this roadtrip also turned out to be a dream of an experience! A huge thank you goes out to the previous owner Mats Hellstroem, to Paul Hill for being the perfect co-driver, to everyone we meet and who helped us on our travels, to all those that have supported us through following our story here on ViaRETRO and not least to that fabulous little 47 year old BMW.
I do believe we just experienced Motoring Nirvana…