You might say it was inevitable I’d get into cars: I grew up in a BMW dealership… but actually my grandfather founded an ARAL petrol station shortly after the war, when there were only two cars in our small town. The Catholic priest pedalled there on his bicycle to warn him that his family was surely going to starve. They didn’t.
Rather, my father added a Fiat dealership when the company was at nearly 10 per cent market share, plus a much-needed workshop. He later rather boldly added BMW, a very small and totally niche company back then. My parents were worried the mighty Fiat might not take too kindly to that and insist on exclusivity. But at first it didn’t, then, as the fortunes of both companies reversed, it couldn’t.
I started working at the petrol station before, after and just as often instead of school from the age of 14, and in many cases learning things that would end up being far more useful to me. Despite this, my German equivalent of A-levels were still good enough for me to choose at which university I’d study mechanical and automotive engineering. After all, by then I’d made the decision to spend my life making cars rather than fueling, washing, servicing and doing everything else that goes on in a car dealership and petrol station. I clearly remember one particular day when I opened the petrol station at 6am, manned it alone until 1pm – including unblocking the toilet – and in the afternoon, after a shower and a change into my one and only business suit, selling my first 100,000 Deutschmark car; a BMW 635CSi.
