02princessLisa with her Tesoro & Derby

Tesoro's custom chrome bumpers have the horn bumper overriders which are just one of the accents that are period correct for only the US spec 1973 2002s, the last year of the roundies. 

(same with the shallow bucket grilles) !

Not very often where I get to 'play dress' up with my cars... I love how this dress matches Tesoro's jewel tip hirschmann antenna! 

Cruising over the Richmond Bridge during sunrise... Tesoro is a thoroughbred.... aching to be driven.... FAST! As the driver, It's how I wanted him to be built....

Pic taken by car photographer Joel Flores , Bay Area car photographer

Pic taken at Jay Leno's Garage by the Executive Producer who is Jay's personal car photographer.

Pic taken at Performance Technic shop. Love how the green tinted windows stands out !

What a wonderful turn out for the First 02P BBQ and Picnic end of summer/car season event!

I want to thank  Rick Row from the North Bay Bavarian brigade who brought out some special cars and it was such a pleasure to finally meet Forrest Koogle from KOOLGEWERKS!

I want to also give a HUGE THANK YOU to BAYAREA02 for help contributing to this event and others who also wanted to contribute towards the catering from Lombardi's in Petaluma.

Thank you to Patrick from Bill Arnold's who helped with driving Derby and local North Bay neighbors Luke Thacher and Delia Wolfe who helped with transporting equipment and food to the event.

I wanted to host a small social event dedicated to 2002s and NK's to share with the enthusiasm we have with our cars. Its always a lot of fun sharing and showcasing our vintage mobiles with others and just the drive alone out to Stafford Lake is a fun drive! If you haven't driven the backroads of Marin County, it is a must to do! I believe by doing these small exclusive events with Bay Area 02ers, it builds our community up and gives us an opportunity to meet those that we communicate with behind the computer/phones.  Anyone is invited from anywhere... this is not just a North Bay event. Even Dieter from Sacramento came out to the event in his glorious schwarz e21!

I met some new friends and great to catch up with those I haven't seen in a while!

I look forward to hosting some more events in the near future... In the meantime, if you are ever in Novato, I do host the 02PCC every last Sunday of the month at Marin Coffee Roasters. There's always a good group who come out for some coffee and donuts! Hope you can come out to one!

So blessed and honored to have my 1600 BMW DERBY on Jay Leno's Garage YouTube! Thank you again for having us on your show! 😘
#Repost @jaylenosgarage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-PYhs2wYzI

You can follow the BMW2002FAQ Forum thread here:

Do you know the way to... Monterey?

Headed to Monterey this year determined to win an award for Clean Class! It was foolish of me to think that after a newly fresh restoration, that Tesoro would win last year, easy. But that was not the case. Learning from last year's mishaps by missing key areas on the car to clean, I decided not to use a detailer this year and go at detailing the car all on my own.

Left for Monterey on Sunday 08/13 and upon arrival at my parents home in Pacific Grove, I quickly got Tesoro into the garage, said my hello's to my parents and got the microfiber cloths out with detail spray and spent a good 3 hours scrubbing, and wiping every spec of dirt and oil I could find. Those BBS wheels.... goodness.. how lovely they look, but what a PITA to clean! I have the cuts and bruises to prove this!

Spent most of Monday 08/14 detailing Tesoro too. Cleaning a black car is no easy task. Must be mirror reflective, no swirls, no foggy residue of any sort. MUST BE SLIIIIIICK! Black is the hardest color to keep clean, to keep dent free, to keep lint free as its such an unforgiving color when dirty. However, when clean, Tesoro was like a black diamond..... (diamond schwarz!)

Tuesday 08/15 I did go downtown to Carmel by the Sea for the Concours on the Avenue. Some very nice BMW e9's from the East Coast were staged next to a cute little red isetta, and there was COOP's Baikal beauty tii that was there next to a very rad 80's M1. Lots of Porsches on the grounds this year with vintage Alfa's and vintage Mercedes along side the avenue. Of course, I had to step into the oyster bar and had a martini or two to soak in the delightful time spent at this concours. Spent the rest of the night detailing Tesoro again in the garage.

Wednesday 08/16 went to the "little car show" (cars under 1600cc) in downtown Pacific Grove and had I known I could have shown Derby, I probably would have been more inclined to bring Derby down this year with Tesoro. I also went to Mike Berger's shop in downtown Pacific Grove and met a few bimmer friends.

Thurs 08/17 spent the day cleaning to get ready for the big day on Friday at Legends!

Fri 08/18 BIG DAY at Legends! Entered Tesoro for clean car and still was wiping down Tesoro on the lawn! LOL! Never Ending! And then the moment came for judging... I don't know if you can talk with the judges or not, but I kept in the corner and let them deliberate amongst themselves. SO nerve wracking to see their facial expressions... were they impressed? were they sneering at some dirt??.... And after they left, a small little "thank you" and that was it??

So instead of pondering about what I could have done differently to show the car better, I spoke with a ton of people about Tesoro and met new friends and reacquainted myself with some old friends too. Going to shows like this is such an amazing experience, not just for the cars, but mostly for the friends that are made. People are just as interesting as the cars, and meeting the owners of their machines, its also quite inspiring as we all are enthusiasts under our skin, no matter what race, age, gender, etc....

Then, the moment comes when I see a note on my car..... "Congratulations... your automobile has been selected to receive an award!"Woo hoo! At this point. I didn't care what place I came in... I was determined to win an award this year and any one of them would have been satisfying!

They had the 3 of us winners placed side by side for clean class and when we heard our name, we would know what place we would win... 3rd place... Dakar yellow E36 M3....... 2nd place.... Black Z3 .... and 1st place..... TESORO! I couldn't believe it! I drove up to the podium in my black steel steed and gathered my award presented to me by Paul Cain. Gave a small little thank you into the microphone and strolled right on over back to the lawn.

Afterwards, my friend who is the president of Robert Graham NYC clothing line was at his store in downtown Carmel, and he rolled out the red carpet for Tesoro in front of his store behind his Bentley!

EPIC DAY!

Saturday 08/19 went to Laguna Seca to watch the morning half of the races, but was sadly disappointed that there were not many BMW CCA members there this year as there was last year. I think with the anticipation of BMW's 100 year anniversary, most people have now "been there, and done that." Nevertheless, I had such a fabulous time with friends and family. Next year... will be Derby's turn to experience Monterey week!

Had both Derby and Tesoro trailered out to Burbank for a shooting on a youtube episode for Jay Leno's Garage.

What an amazing experience to be in a presence of a very well known car enthusiast with a super large collection of rare cars! 

Both cars were trailed down with the help of Performance Technic and my local mechanic Bill Arnold. 

Jay LOVED Derby... he glanced over at Tesoro and admired the recent build, but Jay absolutely fell In love with an 'unmodified, mostly original car' within Derby.

Filming was nerve wracking and I felt very rushed as I didn't get to say what I wanted to about Derby so much... it just went very rapidly and lights and cameras were recording at different directions which were not easy to follow from someone who has no TV experience... 

Jay and I then went on a drive and that's when it was much more relaxed and answering questions was much more easier than being put on the spot. 

Jay had a catered lunch and we got to tour his HUGE collection of cars.

Regardless if someone's garage is bigger or better than the other person's ... Jay was a total down to earth person who has the same "car enthusiast bug sensation" that we all share. 

Can't believe what a dream come true this is...  I hope to have represented the 02 community with much pride and respect and as soon as the show is posted, I will share the link on my blog. 

It's owning both these pieces of art and meeting car enthusiasts of all different levels of love for these boxy little german cars that makes this car passion so incredibly amazing ... 

Cheers! (With my gin and tonic in the garage detailing Derby before taking off to Burbank) 

Great to see some love from the e21/e30s today! Such a beautiful morning start to a lazy Sunday!

Special shout out to Dieter who drove from Sacramento with his sweet schwarz original 320is! and Thank you to Patrick from Bill Arnold's who drove Derby out for me!

Thanks to all who came out and hope to see more of a turn out for a drive and picnic for The end of Summer 02PCC in August! Mark your calendars! Last Sunday of August!

(Went to brunch afterwards and look what was on the menu! 😉 - too bad I don't like grapefruit! 😜🥃 )

Much love to our rare 1600's! 😍 Especially with that early schwarz 1600 that sold on BAT for 28K!

1600's are another breed of desirable ones... have you hugged your 1600 today?

After an evening cruise... Vanilla sky's reflection on Tesoro's trunk lid... Happy 2002sday !

Damn, I love this car...

Hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful day!

Another great turn out for 02PCC in Novato !

Every last Sunday of the month! Hope to see you at the next one in July!

Thank you to Performance Technic for sharing some pics we did in San Francisco with Derby (pre black plate and mudflaps!)

You can check out the pics here:

https://www.performancetechnic.com/blog/2017/6/22/san-francisco-flair-lisas-bmw-1600-derby

Here's a little something not a lot of people knew about.

People have asked me, 'what's with the little cubby roll up thing in your center console in Tesoro?

Growing up, my father had an array of Mustangs that he had owned from the 60's and 70's. And as a little girl being passenger in his cars, I used to always fiddle around and open and close that roll up door in the center console of his 1967 Mustang fastback which drove him crazy! Haha! 😜

We are the Champions!

New plate and new PC mudflaps dress up Derby so dapper! 😍

Pic of both Tesoro and Derby at last Sunday's Novato's CC.

A couple of years ago, I received these never been used, still in its sealed bag from BMW 1600/2002 mudflaps.

I wanted to originally put them on Tesoro, however, after contemplating on putting them on Tesoro with the 15' wheels... I decided to just hoard them as they were never opened from factory.

I don't know if some of you have heard of all the crazy "eventful" stories of traveling to and from Vintage, but the second pic of the Bristol 70 car had a blown tire on the way and they hit a guard rail... The owner was ok, but it was so sad to see this original Bristol get hurt on the way. 

Last pic is of Brandon Washburn with his girlfriend Tory, Cindy and Andrew Wilson, and Robert Olemedo with his son. A great group of friends on or way to the Sierra Nevada Brewery for dinner in a shuttle bus. 

I couldn't possibly take over 600 pics of all the cars there, but enjoy some of these 2002s that I snapped... 😉

Wow! I am speechless as to what an amazing weekend I had at Vintage! Such a perfect location for the cars on the east coast! The drive to the BMW Foundation was epic and to the show on Saturday was such sweet reverie! 

Met so many new friends and reacquainted with dear friends! A fellow BMW friend needed a second driver for the events, so I am "paying it forward" (as Andrew Wilson drove Tesoro for me to Brisbane) and I want to thank Robert Olmedo for entrusting me with driving his e9 and tii to the events! 

There is no doubt that I'll be back out next year! Would love to try to get both Tesoro and Derby out.... ! 😉

Enjoy the pics and have a great rest of the weekend everyone! 

Pics part 1- at the BMW foundation with Andrew Wilson in His M5 and Brandon Washburn in his M3 and me driving Robert Olmedo's e9. 

Such a nice turn out at Brisbane this year! And no rain!  Although it was quite breezy at times, the sun was out and both Tesoro and Derby made their debut at our own Bay Area 02 Swap and Show. 

Coordinated a caravan of a dozen cars from the North Bay to meet up at Bill Arnold's shop at 7:30A. I only trust a handful of people to drive Tesoro or Derby and Who else better to ask, Andrew Wilson,  AKA "Mr. Maine BMW Chapter President" and "Iron Butt" award winner (who has traveled many miles across the states in his trusty VERN 2002tii), who flew out to this year's Brisbane and drove Tesoro to Brisbane and back for me as I drove in with Derby. Thank you Andrew !

It was truly remarkable to see so many 02s that came out this year! I met so many new faces and reacquainted with people on the FAQ and friends that I haven't seen in a while. I feel very fortunate to know some of you and thank you for those who have helped me with either your 02 history, parts that were unattainable, or just those looking out for me and my cars. Thank you to Le at 2002garagewerks for building the car of my dreams, and Thank you to Bill Arnold for keeping up the service for both Tesoro and Derby to have them safe on the road!

Here are some pics of Tesoro and Derby. I've seen some great shots of them on Instagram and FB too... ! Thanks for sharing the love! 

Spent about 3 hours the other night cleaning out the engine on Derby... sooo dirty! This car has definitely been driven!

I had the air cleaner and snorkel canister bead blasted and repainted.

Some little differences in the early cars.... love the ribless valve cover, the no hole plenum, the football washer fluid holder, no brake booster, tiny battery, baby radiator fan.... etc..