Last night I traded in my Titanium Silver 2006 BMW 330 for a shiny new 2011 335i in Alpine White.  Through a series of mishaps, I was not able to make it to the dealership until well after closing time (I didn’t pull in until 9:30pm).  My 330i was a great car – I owned it longer than any other I’ve had in my life.  I hope to have my 335i just as long, if not longer.

BMW will be phase out the E90 3 Series body style, and introducing the next iteration of the 3 Series (the much rumored F30) in just a couple of months, and it’s expected to go on sales in the late Fall/Early winter.  So why did I buy now?  Well, for several reasons.  Firstly, I got somewhat burned when I bought my2006 330i when the E90 body style  was first introduced in the Fall of 2005.  BMW offered the 330i exactly one year – in 2007 they introduced the 335i and did away with the 330i.  In doing so they introduced the twin-turbo N54 engine to much critical acclaim.  Then in 2009 they introduced the current N55 TwinPower engine.  But when they introduced the twin-turbo version of the engine which my car had just one year after I bought mine, I was pretty peeved.  So as I considered the possibility of trading my car in this Fall on the F30 3 Series, I was concerned about experiencing the same problem when I bought my 330i during the first year of the E90.  Secondly, BMW offered some very attractive discount pricing on the outgoing 3 Series models – my 2011 335i cost me nearly the same as my 2006 330i did as a result of the special pricing.  And you generally don’t get much if any discounting in the first year of a new model introduction.  So I decided to grab a smokin’ hot deal on a 335i equipped the way I wanted (they had to trailer the car from a dealer in Chicago to get one with my preferred options load out).  I’ll take a wait-and-see approach on the new F30 3 Series.

Because it was so late in the evening, I didn’t get to do a typical new car delivery, where they pull it in the showroom and you take a bunch of pictures.  Instead, I just got a couple of photos with my iPhone in front of the dealership:

Here’s a shot of the dash – just 10 miles on the odometer:

Today I grabbed my 5D Mark II, and took a few more shots during the lunch hour in an empty section of a Meijer parking lot:

Had to grab a quick wrist shot in front of the new car – today’s watch is my Y series 16610 Rolex Submariner:

I plan on doing some more photo shoots with the car after I get back from my Palm Springs California golf vacation – my son and I fly out in the morning.  🙂