I had always looked upon 7 Series cars
with admiration and a little envy when one would roll past
on the street. I recall that I would usually think to myself,
“Someday” as it would pass by. This was the case on Saturday
Sept. 25, 1999 when my daughter Alexandra and I were enroute
to a Ford dealership in in the Philadelphia suburbs to place
a deposit on an order for a new Ford Expedition. When the
740iL turned left in front of us as we waited at a traffic
signal, I thought to myself, “Someday” and in a flash, it
occurred to me that someday had arrived.
I reached for my cell phone and some
15 minutes later we were in a Black/Tan 1997 740iL taking a
test drive. What was remarkable was the fact that the
saleswoman recalled who I was from inquiries I had made two
years before. I had spoken to Janet Barnes of West German
BMW when I was looking for a car for my wife back in 1997.
When I called West German to ask about a CPO 740iL, it was
Janet that said,
"You were looking for a black 740iL a
while back, weren't you?"
"As a matter of fact there is a black 740iL here right now,
so why not stop by and take it for a test drive"
The rest as they say is history....Janet
turned out to be a "Princess" indeed, for when the numbers
came back, the CPO 740iL was going to be @ $60.00 less per
month than the Expedition, thanks to BMW’s aggressive
financing interest rate.
I took delivery of Baby on Tuesday
Sept. 28, 1999 and proudly drove her home. She had all of
22,475 miles on the odometer. Later that night, my wife
noting my restlessness, had a look of disbelief on her face
when I explained that, I could not believe I owned a 7 and
that I wanted to sit in the front seat and sleep in the car.
Little did we know how this was merely a hint of the madness
to come.
![](/projectimages/pro01-01.jpg)
Baby on her winter-wheels
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Chapter II
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