Watch My BMW M3 Touring Get Built in Germany | 4k

Hey guys, welcome back to another video. You join me out in Munich, Germany, the birthplace of BMW. They set up shop here 110 years ago and I'm currently standing outside of gate 1 for the Munich plant. I'm here to get behind the scenes and watch some of the process of what goes into building a BMW M3 and not just any M3, we're going to watch the process of my individual G81 M3 Touring being built. It takes about 40 hours for the entire build process of my M3 and watching all of that is just unrealistic. Over the past couple of days it's had 6,000 spot welds and it's been through the paint shop. It's had its individual Lime Rock Grey paint applied. I can't wait to see that in the flesh tomorrow. Talking of which, we have a 6am start and a full-on day ahead of us. At the end of which I get to interview BMW M's CEO Frank Van Mill and head of plant Munich Peter Weber. Before we go any further I want to say a massive thanks to BMW UK and BMW Germany for making this all possible. As you can imagine there was a lot of planning and logistics that went into this. We're going to head back to the hotel and get an early night, although I don't think I'm going to sleep much tonight because I genuinely feel like a kid at Christmas. Well this is exciting. We're at the first stage of the assembly line. The cars have been painted. They come out of a giant storage room down there where they're all stacked and now they're getting picked and they're coming through here. My car is literally a handful of cars away so I'm super excited. They actually build about a thousand units a day here and this is just one factory. They do essentially three series and four series grand coupe and that includes M models like the M3 saloon and the M3 touring obviously. Today I'm borrowing Hans Huber's jacket so you can call me Hans if you want in the comments. I feel like I'm fitting right in although the jacket's a little bit small for me but I thought I'd wear it anyway because then I feel like I'm part of the family. Right we're now a couple of cars away and if you look up at the screen there in the second row in yellow you'll see G81, 824, 7139 and that is my car. Oh my goodness there's my car. There is my car. That is insane. I can't believe it. My actual car. I might get the chance to go around and have a look. I'm just gonna wait for the uh I can go. Look at this. Oh my god. I'm so excited. This is brilliant. Right they're going to put this car's data tag on so everyone knows exactly the spec that's going on. Complete bare shell as you can see. Structure in the doors. The strengthening because obviously there needs to be a lot of strength indoors for side impacts etc. So these guys are now going to remove the doors and after they finish removing the doors like this they then get put into this machine here. It gets lifted up and the doors are taken away to another part of the production line where they get built up essentially and then eventually they'll come back and meet the car when it's ready to go. So cool. Now we have the shell without the doors and these guys are fitting all of the sort of cable mounts some of the rubber seals so boot seals etc. Just getting the car prepared for putting the wiring looms in and well various other stages. So we now have some of the soundproofing going in. Amazing. Maybe I should ask them to leave that bit out so I can hear more of the S58. Everyone down here is so friendly and so accommodating as well because obviously it's not every day they get someone like me Tony and Julian down here pointing cameras in their faces. Wow look at this. So this is essentially a package full of the wiring loom. Look at that wiring loom. Oh my goodness. I mean where do you start? Look at that. Wow. That is this car's veins. They're getting plumbed in. Unreal. Look at that. I think they've done it a couple of times before. This is definitely not their first rodeo. The pace is just relentless. Only seconds ago it feels like it was a bare shell and now things are starting to come together so quickly. I didn't realise we were going to get this much access and be this close. I'm actually paranoid about the camera being so close to the bodywork. All that wiring loom is now spread out through the car. We got bits of it popping out in the engine bay. It's all getting pinned back put in its position all down the side of the chassis of the car, in the boot. Literally 60 seconds ago that wiring loom came down in a bag as we've just seen and now it is pretty much installed and ready to go. It's amazing the pace. So as my car gets its way around the production line that alarm means break time. So everything stops and everyone goes for a break. Hopefully a cup of coffee. A well-deserved snack because these guys and girls are on the early shift. I think they're orange cables but you can see that there's still space for the gearbox etc and the engine. Then we have a full electric here which is I'm assuming probably an i4. Where the gearbox normally would be we've got some electrical modules going in. It's same same but different. Obviously no fuel tank in this one either. No exhaust or space for exhaust in the back because it's fully electric. It doesn't need an exhaust. That is a regular 3 series and you can see that there is some heat shielding on there for the exhaust, gearbox etc. But on my G81 we actually have two bits of heat shielding and we've got more around the back end here. So on any of the M3s regardless of whether they're the M3 saloon or the M3 touring there's more heat shielding because obviously it gets hotter and it's probably going to be driven a bit harder. So without these guys the cars wouldn't get built because obviously they're transporting all of the really important individual components around to certain parts of the production line. Thank you very much. Right it's time for my car to leave this part of the production line and actually head back downstairs again. I'm going to try not get run over by my own car. I don't know how I'd explain that. This car is going to head into another complex looking lift system. Now they're installing the side airbags. So like the curtain airbags not the main airbags because that is all part of the dashboard and the steering wheel as we know. So there's yet more parts being bolted to the car before the stuff that we're familiar with gets put in like the interior. I'm really excited about seeing the interior being fitted and in fact you don't know that I changed the colour of my interior. Lastminute.com, poor Tony. Right the lights are being installed now. How nice does that red light contrast with the Lime Rock Grey. The pedal box is in. Great to see top rack on a poster and of course the Red Bull Drift Brothers. All of the seat belts etc have been installed and we're gonna walk around to the next part of the production where they start fitting the interior as we know it. Just when I thought it couldn't get any better I've spotted my dashboard and yes this is the first time you'll see the colour of my interior. Fiona Red. I changed it last minute. And then the delicate movement and in they go. Look at that. Amazing. So the rear seats are in but we're going to see the front seats being installed. We're just playing catch up at the moment but I'm glad I caught that. Right here we go. The big moment. Front seats about to be installed. Here they come. Oh yes. Look at that. I love it. The left and right going together. Unstrapped. Brilliant. Seats are in. Right now that the seats are in of course they need to be bolted to the floor. So these guys are just making sure they're positioned right and bolted on. Look at that. The interior is coming together. I'm so glad I've gone for Fiona Red. I really really am. I think it contrasts so well with the paint. Looks fantastic. Look at that. They're already moving under their own steam because the car does have power. In fact look the dashboard is all lit up for the first time. Right here we go. The doors are going on. So they've been pre-assembled obviously with all of the door cards, the Fiona Red leather, the windows etc. Completely different to how we left them this morning. So rear doors first. Going on again. Easy work for these guys. The robots do all the lifting and they do all the last minute sort of fastening. Make sure the doors are attached basically. Brilliant. Right here come my front doors. This is just insane. Absolutely nuts. So if you look at how that attaches. It's using suction mounts on the glass and a rubber bung at the bottom. So very very gentle with the door and the paintwork. It's been positioned. Comes away. Color-coded boot spoilers going on. And look at this. There are my keys. The next time I see them will probably be when Tony hands them over when I collect the car. It has to be right first time. Especially my car. Yeah. I suppose they're plumbing in so all the electronics, the hoses, the cooling. They start to connect everything. So we have different materials. So we join metal, we join plastic. This way you also have to make sure that everything works when you go in a hot country, where you go in a cold country. And really the problem is you have different coefficients of the material where it stretches or really compresses depending on the temperatures. So we have to make sure if you drive from the Sahara into the Arctis, which is quite impossible I know, but that your car is working perfectly. Yeah, some people do it and you send it to so many different regions around the world, right? And it has to work everywhere. So if you're buying your car in Canada, we also make sure you can drive in Mexico, which is a better use case. So this is the first time I've got up close and personal to my car now that it's had all the running gear attached. We've got the brakes on, all the lovely suspension arms in there. You can see I've gone for the black calipers. If it was up to Tony, I would have gone red, but there you go. Do you prefer red or black calipers? Red. I really like the red one. Red? Red. Sorry. Red. And the front calipers have actually got purple covers on them to stop them getting damaged from the paint, which is really cool. It's like an individual brake caliper, but it's not. You can see just how much goes on underneath the bonnet of an M3 especially. You've got the massive S58 three litre straight six twin turbo. You've got all of the cooling, all of the electronics. And on top of that, you've obviously got the suspension each side. There's just no space. That's as much as you can get under the bonnet of a G series, three series. And so we use this jig to place it on there to really make sure that everything is aligned. Because when we attach the front end to the car, it needs to be exactly right because otherwise we could damage something on the car. We don't want that, of course. So if he puts a jig on and it doesn't line up, then there's a problem. Yeah. So usually the jig lines up quite perfectly. Yeah. And we don't have any issues. Yeah. But if he, maybe there's a big issue, I don't know, which never happened while I'm working here since two and a half years, I think, then we would leave the car as it is and bring it down to the rework. And then they would finish the car, of course. So I almost get taken off the production line at a later stage. And okay. So this is one of our quality workers and his only job is to check everything that yeah, now, now it's looking like a G81 M32 apart from the badge. They've removed the front caliper covers. So there you can see my lovely black calipers. So all the final adjustments, the rear subframes just being cranked up, the lights have just come on and they're just making sure that the central control unit is working properly. Thanks to this car's headlights, we can actually have a proper look at the paint. You can really see the lime of the grey coming out there in direct light. Okay. Just hit it. Okay. There you go. Do I have a job now? Thank you. Cheers. Thank you. Right then. This is another exciting part of the production and the final assembly. My wheels are rolling out. There they are. Silver wheels. And I am so glad to see that they're clad with Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tyres, star marked, homologated. Look at that. There you go. Oh, how good do the silver wheels look? Yes. Silver for the win. Oh, this is just mega. That's the rear coming out. Wow. Fantastic. I am so glad that it's on Michelin's. So it looks like it's attached initially with one bolt and then maybe this adds the other four. Tony's just spotted something very cool. That is a nice table, but it's held up by an M4 GTS wheel. Look at that. It's also on a Michelin tyre. Fantastic. That is potentially the best table in the world. I think he's the first guy in my driver's seat. Fantastic. Thank you. Right, the airboxes are in. The engine bay is starting to look really neat. Strap braces in. Engine bay almost complete. Yeah, yeah. No worries. Okay. Perfect. Cool. Thank you. Okay. Right. We're inside the dyno room now just to make sure that all the drivetrain is running properly. Amazing. Oh, so you're looking at the revs and the gears there. So you're following that. Exactly. Yeah. We're now doing 90 miles an hour, 100 miles an hour. Brilliant. So next step is ABS control. So we just kind of sit here and wait for the system to run the ABS controls automatically. So is your foot on the brake now? No. No. Okay. I don't touch anything. Okay. With the M3s, we don't need to do anything. Just like the electric cars. Okay. With the other ones, we need to brake a little bit. Sure. So it's doing the individual wheels, checking everything. Yes. Every side. Yep. Yep. Oh, yeah. You could smell the brakes for the first time. The smell of the brakes. Yeah. As well as the engine. And engine, all the plastics warming up. Time to go. It was a pleasure meeting you. Yes. Yeah. Likewise. Thank you very much. Right. There we go. That's it. Brilliant. Have fun. Thank you very much. Cheers. Well, I wasn't expecting to get my first drive in my brand new M3, but there you go. Right. Well, it's been a very, very long and very, very exciting day. And the icing on the cake is I'm now joined by BMW M CEO, Frank Van Meel, absolute legend and head of plant Munich, Peter Weber. Thanks very much for coming out, guys. I really appreciate it. I've had, I was going to say the best day of my life, but my wife would probably watch this. We have to widen the body, of course, also to get more grip on the front axle. So actually it looks a little bit the same, but it's completely different. But the good news is we still use, let's say, most of the parts of a series production car. So it benefits both sides. Yep. But still, it's completely different. And it's just this racing DNA put into a series production car that makes us so attractive for more than 50 years now. Last questions about you, because I don't want to take up any more of your time. But what are your daily drivers at the moment? What are you driving, Frank? Currently, I'm driving an iX M70 because I wanted to try out in Germany driving electric, which is quite nice because it's got a good range in kilometers. It's about 350, 400 kilometers the way I drive. And but also it's very nice because we had a facelift of the car and now it's got a very good hand sport package with contoured seats, with a round steering wheel, a nice new color on the car. Awesome. Which color? Potimao blue. Oh, nice. And we also have a frozen gray on the car. So it's actually, it's grown over the years. Yeah. It's got more, since the facelift, it's got a bigger range. Yeah. And it's actually, it's quite nice to drive in traffic as well because you're very quick with the electric engines and you have this brake mode where you can do one pedal driving with the gas pedal. Yeah, yeah. Which is quite nice, especially in dense traffic. And if you're going quick, it might also help to fade in or out somewhat. Sure. Yeah. And yourself, Peter? Right now, I'm driving the all new iX3. Oh, okay. Produced in Hungary. Yeah, it's just coming. Fantastic. Amazing, sheer driving pleasure. So really the next generation of electromobility and digitalization. Yeah. Fantastic. The interior design, it's so funky and cool. And all the front end, I think it's really come together. In terms of styling, it's going to be a big seller in the UK. And the new panoramic head-up display is really added value for our customer. Yeah, brilliant. Cool. Well, I think all that's left to say is a massive thanks to both of you. Really nice to see you as well, Frank. Hopefully, I'll see you soon. And over in the UK, maybe at Goodwood or something. Probably. And Peter, thank you very much. Thank you very much. It's been an awesome day. Paulina behind the camera. She's been unreal. Oh, and there's my car behind. Oh, look at that. The timing. Honestly, everyone today has been so helpful and it's just been a day that I'm never going to forget. I feel quite emotional. So there's one last thing that I want Frank and Peter to sign under my bonnet, because I think when I go and collect the car, it'll be such a nice finishing touch. So here we go. The main man. Thank you very much. And then, Peter, you can next box. Yeah. Lovely. Thank you, guys. Thank you very much. Without damaging the car. Yeah, that is what you're trying to avoid. Don't touch the car. Thank you very much. You join me six weeks later, back home in the UK and in my new car. I picked this up from Mr. Tony Lewis exactly a week ago. There will be a collection and first drive video coming to the channel very, very soon. So stay tuned for that. I want to start by saying thanks to anyone that's made it this far into the video. I know it's been a long one, but hopefully you've enjoyed it. If you have, give us a thumbs up, leave any comments and questions below and please consider subscribing if you haven't already. If you like the T-shirt that I was wearing during the plant visit and the hoodie that I'm wearing today, I urge you to go over and check out Petrelhart's clothing range. I'll put a link in the description below. And if you use Joe Achilles at the checkout, you receive 10% off. Right now, let's get on to thanking people who made this video possible. And I'm going to start with the BMW UK press team, more specifically James and Tom. Guys, if you're watching, huge thanks once again. BMW Germany. I'm sure there's a lot of people out there who made this video possible that I'm not even aware of. But the people that I am aware of, I'm going to start with the lovely Paulina, who was our point of contact throughout the entire long day. When I say long day, we met her at 6.30am and we said goodbye at 6.30pm. So it was a 12 hour filming day. But thanks to her, everything ran so smoothly. She was smiling all day and she really gave us energy throughout. So Paulina, again, if you're watching this, huge thanks. It was lovely to meet you and I hope I see you again at some point soon. Then I have to say thanks to Peter Weber, who is the head of Plant Munich and the guy or one of the guys that we just interviewed. It was really, really, really nice on and off camera. And I have to extend my thanks, Peter, if you're watching this, to so many of your thousands of employees because every single one of them was so helpful and so wonderful to me. There was also quite a few subscribers on the production line, which I was surprised to see and surprised to meet. So any of those guys and girls that are watching, thanks and lovely to meet you. And last, most certainly not least, Mr. BMW M himself, Frank Van Mill. Mate, it was lovely to catch up with you off and on the camera and hopefully I'll see you again very, very soon. And then, of course, Mr. Tony Lewis. Mate, it was fantastic spending a week away with you, getting you out of the office and out of Croydon. And we had lots of fun, lots of adventures. And I really appreciate all of the work that you put in, especially during this video and film. And finally, my good mate Julian, known as MyPorscheAdventures on Instagram. I'll put a link to that below in the description. He takes some beautiful photos. He was formerly My BMW Adventures and any of the stills that you see throughout this video and some of the video clips were filmed by Julian. So buddy, it was just great to hang out and enjoy dinner with you after that very long day. And it's always brilliant to see you. So thanks to everyone involved. Thanks to everyone for watching this video and I'll see you on another one very, very soon. Don't rev it too high. It's not been run in yet. Don't break it, Joe. Don't break it. A lot of work went into this car, including some of mine. Cheers.