The home page of James R Salazar

A few weeks ago I stopped by the CVAR event at Texas World Speedway and ran into a few 02 friends (02 is short for BMW’s 2002 model that started its life in the ’60s and remained in production until 1976 – the predecessor to today’s 3-Series). When I received an email from the Houston 02 Group talking about a breakfast gathering five minutes from my home, I found it too hard to resist not showing up. It was nice to see my friends and their cars after all these years.

I did drive my 02 and was happy to see familiar cars at the Starbucks parking lot. This was really a Houston BMW CCA monthly breakfast gathering but the 02 Group was very keen on having its members make an appearance.

The cars have not changed much: one or two (including my own) have a couple of new rust bubbles while others have received new modifications. All the owners (again, including myself) have plans for some sort of modification or restore. And that’s part of the fun of owning these cars: trying to keep them looking sharp and running strong. And there is a certain amount of pride in jumping into a car that is over 30 years old, having it start right away and then being able to drive it cross-country if necessary. The other cool thing about these cars is that they can still hold their own against more modern cars when it comes to handling – we may not be fast off a dead start but, damn, these cars can handle (especially if you have replaced your worn suspension with a tricked out configuration)!

Something I have been noticing and noticed again at the gathering is the popularity of Panasport wheels on 02s. I purchased mine some ten years ago (I liked them so much that I purchased two sets: one for the street and another for the track) to replace the boring stock steel wheels that were on my car. I wanted to improve the look of my car (which it did in a big way) and to be a little different. These are great looking wheels and they are more in-line with the car’s period than many of the new wheel designs out today. While the Panasports are really replicas of the original Minilites, they are a great alternative to the Minilites. I tried getting a set of Minilites before purchasing my Panasports but I could not find any back then – at least not new ones at a decent price. (Minilites are much easier to find now, just go to www.minilitewheels.com)

One thing that surprised me was when I asked my friends about their little kids: they are not little any more, they are now driving! Yikes!!!