Dinan: Taking BMW to the Next Level! - The Downshift Ep. 78
On this episode of The Downshift
Transcript
00:00 (soft music)
00:02 I can't remember not loving cars.
00:06 When I was in the first grade, I got a seat by the window
00:09 so I could daydream about doing laps
00:11 around the parking lot in a go-kart.
00:12 I had several jobs at several different repair shops,
00:14 but I ultimately wound up landing a good job
00:16 at a B&W repair shop, and that was,
00:19 I fell in love with B&Ws,
00:20 and went to engineering school at night
00:22 and paid my way through school working as a technician.
00:25 When I got out of college, I started the business.
00:28 I started designing parts and making them out
00:30 of my garage at home and selling them
00:31 out of little postage stamp ads in the back of car
00:33 and drive road and track before they had the internet.
00:36 Yeah, just a lot of hard work.
00:37 My problem was ever stopping working,
00:40 just because I didn't really consider it work.
00:42 I know it was, but it was also a hobby
00:45 and a love all at the same time.
00:47 (dramatic music)
00:55 (dramatic music)
00:58 (gentle music)
01:08 When I finally got a job working on B&Ws in 1977,
01:14 I immediately, when I started working,
01:16 I appreciated the way the car was put together,
01:17 the level of engineering, the fit and the finish.
01:19 Even back in those days, I thought it was exceptional
01:21 compared to anything.
01:22 There are other cars that are faster,
01:23 but there's no car made in the world
01:24 that gives you the feedback to the driver,
01:26 that communication with the steering wheel and the pedal
01:28 and the seat of the car like a BMW does,
01:31 that enables you to control the car on a limit
01:33 or closer to the limit better
01:34 than any other car I've ever been in.
01:35 As soon as I felt that, I fell in love with it.
01:38 Well, Dinan's R&D process starts with,
01:42 we buy a brand new car and we break it in
01:43 and then I drive it around for a few weeks.
01:45 And not just for how a car feels
01:47 from a grip standpoint, things like that,
01:48 but just what is good about the vehicle
01:50 and bad about the vehicle
01:51 and what feels like it's in harmony and what doesn't.
01:54 And I drive the car around and I make notes
01:56 about what I like and what I don't like,
01:59 where I think the car can be improved more
02:01 or where I think the car is already brilliant.
02:03 And then I pass those notes onto our engineering team.
02:06 And then we'll have a fabricator and a CAD person
02:10 who does design and final analysis and wrap prototyping
02:14 and they'll work together.
02:15 And now we have everything on solid modeling
02:18 and we have a digitizer,
02:18 so we literally take the part off the car,
02:20 we digitize the part, we put it in the computer
02:23 and we manipulate BMW's part and change it
02:25 the way we want to.
02:26 And we have a 3D printer which prints
02:28 a solid model of the part.
02:30 Every time they get something that they like,
02:32 they give me the car and let me drive it again.
02:35 And I come back with a critique
02:37 about what I think that they've done right
02:39 and what they think they've done wrong
02:40 and then I send them back to the drawing board again.
02:42 This process goes on for at least six months,
02:44 if not 18 months most of the time.
02:45 And we go over and over and over again
02:47 and we'll design things half a dozen,
02:49 a dozen times before I'm happy with it.
02:51 It's not about getting at the door,
02:52 it's about making it right.
02:53 We have an engine dyno,
02:58 so we can do engine research outside the car
03:01 like a car company would.
03:03 We also have a chassis dynamometer
03:05 that measures the power at the rear axles
03:06 where we take the wheels off and bolt to the rear axles.
03:08 When you bolt the dyno pickups right to the rear axle,
03:13 there's no wheel slippage going on.
03:15 We have great data acquisition and engineers to run it.
03:19 We have a data logger on both,
03:21 so we can monitor all the channels near the car completely
03:24 or on the engine itself
03:25 as far as temperatures and pressures.
03:27 And then we can analyze that data
03:29 and then do recalibrations to maximize performance.
03:32 And those recalibrations can come in the form
03:33 of either software or actually mechanical changes.
03:36 What I find what really makes the company great
03:38 is the quality of the people inside the company.
03:40 And as an owner of a business,
03:41 you can only do so much yourself.
03:43 So if you don't surround yourself
03:44 with people that are as talented as you,
03:46 you'll never ultimately achieve the success that you want.
03:49 So my goal is always to find incredibly talented people
03:53 and then hang on to them for a really long time
03:55 so the depth of the company grows.
03:57 And that makes our products the best.
03:59 Dynon always has several models a year we play with
04:07 just as an R&D exercise
04:08 'cause we're really excited about the car
04:10 and we wanna make a statement
04:12 about both BMW as a brand and Dynon as a brand.
04:16 And so we go crazy with the car,
04:17 even if we think we're gonna sell five of them
04:19 when they came with the 1M
04:20 and had these big meaty flares on the car
04:21 that's really tough.
04:22 And we really liked the styling of the car.
04:24 So we wanted to see how fast we can make it go.
04:27 And we wound up with almost 450 horsepower
04:30 and 450 pound feet of torque
04:32 of a three liter six cylinder with a 3,200 pound car
04:35 with M3 size wheels and tires on it
04:37 and a coilover track suspension.
04:39 The car is just fun.
04:41 You can't drive and not get a smile on your face.
04:43 (car engine roaring)
04:46 He loves to drive fast.
04:51 You know, there's times when I'm surprised
04:54 he still has a driver's license.
04:56 I'm driving on the road, not too fast.
04:58 (laughing)
05:01 I'm pretty sedate just driving around.
05:04 But what I will do is I'll go out on the weekends
05:06 either on a motorcycle or car out
05:08 and I will drive an hour or two to get to a desolate road
05:10 that I know really has great corners on it.
05:13 And long straightaways and I'll drive very fast.
05:17 Been driving that way for 45 years.
05:20 He has been that way since the first day I met him.
05:23 The M5 we make right now is probably
05:25 my favorite car we make.
05:26 It's 670 horsepower and 600 pound feet of torque.
05:32 And we made that out of coilover kit
05:34 on the electronic shocks that you can still adjust
05:36 how stiff the car is, but it's very low
05:38 and handles fantastic for a big car.
05:40 If you just want a really fast car
05:41 to do high speed touring and there's nothing better.
05:45 I mean it's brutally fast.
05:47 (car engine roaring)
05:50 I still like to drive.
05:59 I mean that's the whole reason I do this.
06:00 I mean it's certainly, it's a business.
06:03 But I like to drive cars fast.
06:05 I like the enjoyment of just driving.
06:08 I like the sensation of the G-force
06:10 and I like the sensation of the speed of going fast.
06:12 But I also more than anything else like the sensation
06:14 of being able to control a machine.
06:16 There's nothing quite like coming out of a corner
06:18 with a car really loaded up.
06:19 Squeeze and throw and have the thing leave the corner
06:21 just set you back in the seat.
06:22 And you're driving the car but you're under control
06:25 and the car's just going somewhere.
06:26 And I don't know how to describe it,
06:27 but I love the feeling.
06:29 (soft music)
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06:55 (gentle music)
06:58 you