Bimmer Invasion Los Angeles returned to the Fairplex in Pomona with seven indoor exhibit halls, roughly 1,500 cars on display and an expected crowd of 10,000 people, according to the organisers. The show ran on Saturday, September 12, from 1:00 PM to 7:00 PM, and the scale of the event made a single pass through the venue all but impossible.
The Fairplex offers around 325,000 square feet of indoor exhibit space across its buildings, and Bimmer Invasion filled seven of them this year, up from five when the show was last held there. The outdoor grounds hosted the judged show, vendor row and general registration. The organisers' West Palm Beach event in April drew more than 15,000 people, setting a benchmark that the Los Angeles edition was still working to match.
At the head of the Ultimate Hall sat one of the show's most significant exhibits: a BMW M3 CRT, one of only 67 built in 2011. The car was displayed without a rope or barrier, allowing visitors to inspect details such as its Sakhir Orange stitching at close range. All 67 examples were finished in Frozen Polar Silver with Melbourne Red accents, and none were sold in the United States. The car remains years away from being eligible for import under the 25-year rule, yet it was brought to the show and left open to the public.
About 75 vendors attended, and a passport programme tied the exhibitor halls together. Visitors who collected all 40 stamps from participating booths could enter a draw for 5,000 dollars in cash, a Fortis Marinemaster M-44 watch or a set of Continental tyres. The mechanic encouraged attendees to visit booths they might otherwise have walked past.
Ken Fong of Bimmer Invasion said the West Coast show leans toward aesthetics, while the East Coast event favours power. The Los Angeles cars emphasised wheels, stance, carbon fibre and paint. Indoor display cars had to apply and be approved, with hard caps on each hall: 50 VIP cars in the Ultimate Hall, 35 each in 40 Years of M3, M Division and Motorsport Legends, 30 each in Vintage Vault, F8x versus G8x and Taste the Rainbow, and 16 in the Wheel Gallery. Most of those spaces sold out in August.
The Wheel Gallery placed BBS and HRE on opposite sides, with eight cars each, allowing visitors to compare wheel designs on an F80 M3 and a G80 four feet apart. Taste the Rainbow gave BMW Individual paint its own room, with two facing rows of cars approved one per colour and no wraps permitted. Around 30 colours were represented, each accompanied by a floor plaque showing the colour name and code. One notable exhibit was a Silverstone car with a genuine blue hue, said to be one of three in America painted that way.
BMW is marking 40 years of the M3 this year, and a dedicated hall traced the model from E30 through G80, with colours including Imola Red, Cedar Red and Laguna Seca Blue lined up in a single row. Elsewhere, the F8x versus G8x Arena placed F87 M2, F80 M3 and F82 M4 models against their G-series successors for visitors to judge. Motorsport Legends, new for this year, featured race cars, drift builds, drag cars and a BMW motorcycle display, including a retired BMW M8 GTE from Turner Motorsport that was once considered too heavy but proved successful in IMSA. The BMW Performance Driving School also attended, signing up visitors for track days.
The Vintage Vault, presented by PSI and E30 Mob, accepted anything produced in 2001 or earlier. The hall included 2002 models, a 2002 Turbo, E39 M5s and numerous E30s. A Polizei-liveried E30 running a single turbo drew particular attention, having already appeared at West Palm Beach. A90 Supras also featured in the Ultimate Hall, with their own exhibit following a poll of the community.