I can't remember not loving cars.
when I was in the first grade I got a seat by the window so I could day dream about
doing laps around the parking lot in a go-kart.
I had several jobs at several different repair shops but I ultimately landed
a good job at a
at a BMW repair shop and that's when I fell in love with BMWs.
I went to engineering school at night and paid my way through school
working as a technician. When I got out of college I started the business.
I started designing parts and making them in my garage at home
selling them out of postage stamp ads in Car & Driver
before they had the Internet.
Just a lot of hard work. My problem was ever stopping working
just because I didn't really consider it work I knew it was but
it was also a hobby and a love all the same time.
When I finally got a job working on BMWs in 1977
I immediately appreciated the way the car was put together.
The level of
engineering, the fit, and finish even back in those days I thought was exceptional
compared to anything.
There are other cars that are faster but there's no car in the world
that gives the feedback and communication to the driver. The steering wheel & pedal,
the seat of a car like a BMW. That enables you to control the car to the limit
As soon as I felt that I fell in love.
Dinan's process starts with we buy a brand new car, we break in, and I
drive it around for a few weeks.
Not just for how the car feels from a grip stand point, but
what is good about the vehicle, bad about the vehicle and what feels in
harmony or doesn't.
When I drive the car I make notes about what I like and what I don't like
where I think the car can be improved more or where I think
the car is already brilliant.
Then I pass those notes onto our engineering team.
and then we'll have a fabricator and CAD person
who does design and final analysis work together.
And now we have everything on some modeling we have a digitizer so we
only take the part off the car we digitize and put it in the computer.
We manipulate BMW's part and change it the way we want.
we have a 3D printer which prints the solid model of the part.
Every time a they get something they like they give me the car and
let me drive it again.
I come back with a critique about what I think that they've done
right and what they've done wrong and I send them back to the
drawing board. This process goes on for
six to eighteen months most of the time we go over and over and over
again and will design things
half a dozen a dozen times before I'm happy with it. It's not about getting it
out the door it's about making it right.
We have an engine dyne so we can do engine research outside the car like a
car company.
We also a chassis dynamometer that measure the power of the rear axles.
When you bolt
the dyno pickups to the rear axle there's no wheel slippage going on.
We have great data acquisition and engineers to run it.
We have a data logger on both so we can monitor all the channels in the other car
completely or
on the engine itself for temperatures and pressures. Now we can
analyze that data
and then do
re-calibrations next month. Those recalibrations can come
in the form of software or mechanical changes.
What I find that makes a company great is
the quality of the people inside the company. As an owner of a business
you can only do so much yourself
so if you don't surround yourself with people as talented as you
never achieve the success that you want.
My goal is always to find incredibly talented people and hang on to them
for a very long time so the depth of the company
grows and that makes our products the best.
Dinan always has several models we play with just as an R&D exercise cuz
we're really excited about the car
and we want to make a statement about both BMW as a brand and Dinan as
a brand.
So we go crazy with a car even if we think we're gonna sell 5 of them.
With the 1M it came with these big meaty flares to make it seem literally tough.
We liked the styling of the car so we wanted to see
how fast we can make go and we wound up with almost 430 horsepower and 450
pound-feet of torque
Of a 3-liter 6-cylinder on a 3200 pound car
with M3 size wheels and tires on it and coil over track suspension occurs
just on.
You can't drive it and not get a smile on your face.
He loves to drive fast I you know there's times and I'm surprised he still
has a driver's license.
High-fiving on the road not too fast.
I'm pretty sedate just driving around
what I will do on weekends is go out on a motorcycle or car
and take an hour to get to a desolate road that I know
has great corners on it and and long straightaways and I'll drive
very fast and driving that way for forty five years.
He has been that way since the first day I met him.
The M5 we make right now is probably my favorite car we make.
670 horsepower and 600 lb-ft of torque and we made a coiling kit on the
electronic shocks that you can still feel how stiff the car is but it's
very low and handles fantastic for a big car if you just wanna really fast car
to do high speed touring in there's you know nothing better I mean it's
it's brutally fast.
I still like to drive and that's the whole reason I do this I mean it's a
you know I certainly it's a business but I like to drive cars fast
I like
the enjoyment of just driving.
I like the sensation of the G-force and sensation of the speed.
But also more than anything else I like being able to
control a machine.
There's nothing quite like coming out of a corner with a car loaded up, squeeze the throttle
and have the thing just
set you back in the seat. You're driving the car but under control and the car
is just
going somewhere and I don't know how to describe it but I love the feeling.