Dominic
11-07-2015, 08:20 PM
Hello guys, I've been wanting to get a ZHP for about 6 years and now I finally have one! It's Mystic Blue with alcantara/cloth interior - I was very picky about finding my top choice color combo. There are a few photos below if you want to skip the background story.
I have twin 5 year old boys and back in 2009 when my wife and I were thinking about having kids, I was daily driving my street/track e30 M3. My wife correctly pointed out that I would need to get a 4 door daily driver since it wouldn't be easy to transport kids in the 2 door M3 (impossible actually since it has a roll bar and fixed shell seats). I considered the universe of sedans and decided that a ZHP would be a great daily driver for me. I had a friend who owned one and after he kindly let me drive it one day I was totally hooked due to its perfect balance between sport and daily comfort. I began seriously hunting for the right car but before I had a chance to buy one my wife got pregnant and we were totally shocked to find out we were having twins! With the extra child on the way we decided that we would actually need a much larger car so we ended up getting a Mazda CX-9. The CX-9 is a really great car, quite sporty for a big 7 passenger vehicle, and capable of hauling lots of baby gear when we drive out of town to visit family, but I was always still pining for a ZHP.
I actually joined ZHP Mafia back in 2012. After my boys turned 2 years old and they switched from rear facing to forward facing car seats, I thought that maybe I could downsize to a sedan, but in reality they were still in very large car seats and there just wasn't room for them and me to be comfortable (I'm 6'2" with long legs). However, I still continued browsing the classified ads, sometimes more consistently than others.
Fast forward to this summer/fall and the impending switch from big car seats to relatively slim booster seats for my sons - once again I saw the potential to downsize my daily to a sedan. This time I got really serious and searched every night waiting for a Mystic/Alcantera car with cold weather package, xenons, and a 6 speed. My new car came to me from Connecticut which was tricky because I never had a chance to see it or meet the previous owner in person, but I got a really great vibe from the seller from the first time we spoke on the phone. He had posted very few pictures in his advertisement, but he's a BMW tech and told me that the original owner was also a BMW enthusiast, and he seemed to be accurately describing both the pros and cons of the car. Once our discussion grew more serious he was willing to take a ton of photos and send them to me even though his home has essentially no phone or internet service, and the photos were true to his descriptions.
The car has more miles (142k) and is less perfect (but still really nice and clean for an 11 year old car) than would have been my ideal, but the asking price was also far below what I was planning to spend so I figured I could cure a lot of ills for the thousands of dollars I would be saving. Now that I have the car and have started transporting my sons in it daily, I have to admit that it also makes for a less stressful ownership experience to know that every time they're a little rough with the car, or their bikes tip over next to it, that they're not putting the first scratch on a perfect paint job! Task number one when I got the car was to deal with loose shadowline trim at the rear of the passenger back door so that it would be secure when the teachers open the door every day at carpool line drop-off for kindergarten. I carefully used some double sided sticky tape to fix it in the correct location and so far it seems to be holding up well. Some day I'll probably bite the bullet and buy a new trim piece, but it works for now. Next up I'll replace the cracked dead pedal with an OEM ///M dead pedal that I ordered and I also bought some gloss black kidneys just for fun. Hopefully I'll get to those projects tomorrow.
A little bit about me: I grew up in New Hampshire and moved to North Carolina from Boston about 10 years ago. I'm turning 37 on Monday, have a wife and two 5 year old boys obviously, and I've always been interested in cars (inherited the car-guy gene from my dad and passing it on to my sons). Aside from the ZHP, I have a 1988 M3, Alpine white, with a track/street set up that I use these days mostly for club events and instructing HPDE for the Tarheel Chapter BMWCCA. I also enjoy autocross and time trials, but haven't found the time for those much lately. I still have my first car, a 1968 Mustang that I bought for $800 in high school, fixed up to make it driveable for a few years in college, and then started the long road of restoration after school. It's been in primer for about 12 years and hopefully someday I'll find time to get it back together! One of the best car-related decisions I've ever made was to install a lift in my 10'6" ceiling garage, allowing me to double stack cars and also making it so much easier to do tough jobs like rear subframe bushings.
Sorry for the long message but I'm really excited about the car and looking forward to being a part of this community! Here are a few photos of my ZHP:
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/domgermana/ZHP/20151024_134717.jpg (http://s112.photobucket.com/user/domgermana/media/ZHP/20151024_134717.jpg.html)
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/domgermana/ZHP/20151024_134514.jpg (http://s112.photobucket.com/user/domgermana/media/ZHP/20151024_134514.jpg.html)
Please excuse the dirty floor mats:
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/domgermana/ZHP/20151024_134559.jpg (http://s112.photobucket.com/user/domgermana/media/ZHP/20151024_134559.jpg.html)
Hooray for booster seats!
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/domgermana/ZHP/20151024_134629.jpg (http://s112.photobucket.com/user/domgermana/media/ZHP/20151024_134629.jpg.html)
Thanks,
Dominic
I have twin 5 year old boys and back in 2009 when my wife and I were thinking about having kids, I was daily driving my street/track e30 M3. My wife correctly pointed out that I would need to get a 4 door daily driver since it wouldn't be easy to transport kids in the 2 door M3 (impossible actually since it has a roll bar and fixed shell seats). I considered the universe of sedans and decided that a ZHP would be a great daily driver for me. I had a friend who owned one and after he kindly let me drive it one day I was totally hooked due to its perfect balance between sport and daily comfort. I began seriously hunting for the right car but before I had a chance to buy one my wife got pregnant and we were totally shocked to find out we were having twins! With the extra child on the way we decided that we would actually need a much larger car so we ended up getting a Mazda CX-9. The CX-9 is a really great car, quite sporty for a big 7 passenger vehicle, and capable of hauling lots of baby gear when we drive out of town to visit family, but I was always still pining for a ZHP.
I actually joined ZHP Mafia back in 2012. After my boys turned 2 years old and they switched from rear facing to forward facing car seats, I thought that maybe I could downsize to a sedan, but in reality they were still in very large car seats and there just wasn't room for them and me to be comfortable (I'm 6'2" with long legs). However, I still continued browsing the classified ads, sometimes more consistently than others.
Fast forward to this summer/fall and the impending switch from big car seats to relatively slim booster seats for my sons - once again I saw the potential to downsize my daily to a sedan. This time I got really serious and searched every night waiting for a Mystic/Alcantera car with cold weather package, xenons, and a 6 speed. My new car came to me from Connecticut which was tricky because I never had a chance to see it or meet the previous owner in person, but I got a really great vibe from the seller from the first time we spoke on the phone. He had posted very few pictures in his advertisement, but he's a BMW tech and told me that the original owner was also a BMW enthusiast, and he seemed to be accurately describing both the pros and cons of the car. Once our discussion grew more serious he was willing to take a ton of photos and send them to me even though his home has essentially no phone or internet service, and the photos were true to his descriptions.
The car has more miles (142k) and is less perfect (but still really nice and clean for an 11 year old car) than would have been my ideal, but the asking price was also far below what I was planning to spend so I figured I could cure a lot of ills for the thousands of dollars I would be saving. Now that I have the car and have started transporting my sons in it daily, I have to admit that it also makes for a less stressful ownership experience to know that every time they're a little rough with the car, or their bikes tip over next to it, that they're not putting the first scratch on a perfect paint job! Task number one when I got the car was to deal with loose shadowline trim at the rear of the passenger back door so that it would be secure when the teachers open the door every day at carpool line drop-off for kindergarten. I carefully used some double sided sticky tape to fix it in the correct location and so far it seems to be holding up well. Some day I'll probably bite the bullet and buy a new trim piece, but it works for now. Next up I'll replace the cracked dead pedal with an OEM ///M dead pedal that I ordered and I also bought some gloss black kidneys just for fun. Hopefully I'll get to those projects tomorrow.
A little bit about me: I grew up in New Hampshire and moved to North Carolina from Boston about 10 years ago. I'm turning 37 on Monday, have a wife and two 5 year old boys obviously, and I've always been interested in cars (inherited the car-guy gene from my dad and passing it on to my sons). Aside from the ZHP, I have a 1988 M3, Alpine white, with a track/street set up that I use these days mostly for club events and instructing HPDE for the Tarheel Chapter BMWCCA. I also enjoy autocross and time trials, but haven't found the time for those much lately. I still have my first car, a 1968 Mustang that I bought for $800 in high school, fixed up to make it driveable for a few years in college, and then started the long road of restoration after school. It's been in primer for about 12 years and hopefully someday I'll find time to get it back together! One of the best car-related decisions I've ever made was to install a lift in my 10'6" ceiling garage, allowing me to double stack cars and also making it so much easier to do tough jobs like rear subframe bushings.
Sorry for the long message but I'm really excited about the car and looking forward to being a part of this community! Here are a few photos of my ZHP:
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/domgermana/ZHP/20151024_134717.jpg (http://s112.photobucket.com/user/domgermana/media/ZHP/20151024_134717.jpg.html)
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/domgermana/ZHP/20151024_134514.jpg (http://s112.photobucket.com/user/domgermana/media/ZHP/20151024_134514.jpg.html)
Please excuse the dirty floor mats:
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/domgermana/ZHP/20151024_134559.jpg (http://s112.photobucket.com/user/domgermana/media/ZHP/20151024_134559.jpg.html)
Hooray for booster seats!
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n184/domgermana/ZHP/20151024_134629.jpg (http://s112.photobucket.com/user/domgermana/media/ZHP/20151024_134629.jpg.html)
Thanks,
Dominic