Extra storage space

[Olly2012]

I'm planning a Eurotrip in our Z3 3.0 sport for the summer and envisage needing more storage space. I understand the Sport has a speaker in the cubby box behind the seats which in other models is a useful storage compartment. The unit seems sealed. Can I get the speaker out easily or is it better to buy a second hand cubby box and swap over? If so, Let me know if youv'e got a black one for sale and how much. I'm less bothered about the sound system - I listen to the Zed's sweet notes!!

Cheers.

[Southernboy]

Would that be with or without roll bars??

[BladeRunner919]

Might be worth asking huntert, he's selling lots of bits at the moment:

http://www.zroadster.net/forum/viewtopi ... 11&t=36823

[Pep]

I can't help with your original question but I got one of these for Christmas and it nearly doubles the amount of boot space so you might find it interesting:



I think they're around £75 but it was well worth it for me, I can get a tent and a fair amount of camping gear in there and it makes do as a pretty decent holdall when not on the boot!

http://www.boot-bag.com <- think you can only order direct, although I've seen a couple on ebay 2nd hand

[RichP]

I have used a similar system to pep, but i just bought a couple of ratchet type straps (<£20) and used a towel to prevent scratching. put a huge tent plus some camping gear wrapped in a tarp on the back.

Not sure on how road legal it is though as it covers the central brake light.

[Southernboy]

You need a boot rack...do a search in the "stock exchange"...there were some members selling recently...better than resting stuff directly on the boot lid..

[Olly2012]

Hi Southerboy - I have what I presume are standard roll bars on the 3litre.

[Southernboy]

The roll bars don't have any bearing on fitting a good boot-lid rack. Have a quick search on eBay for BMW Z3 BOOT RACK....There are either the "permanent ones, which require holes drilled in the boot lid, or the type which have casps that grip onto the side edges of the boot lid, and which you can remove when not needed. Or, perhaps first, post a "WANTED...Boot rack for Z3" on the forum...I'll take poison someone has one and will sell it...

[Southernboy]

I just checked on the stock exchange...seems classicbootracks on the web is where you should look. They do some for the Z3..

[Olly2012]

Cheers Southernboy.

[Rafolian]

Re Olly2012; my '98 2.8 has a speaker fitted eith removable trumpet facing grill at front and the top between the roll hoops in lips and the speaker assembly slides out. (Very tight squeeze tho')

[Rafolian]

That should read, "with" and "uunclips" bloody iPad has a mind of its own!

[Rafolian]

I give up!

[Olly2012]

Cheers. Appreciate the spelling efforts. Makes fun reading. Darn'd auto correct!!

[weedram]

Hi Olly
Not the answer to your question but we have done eurotrips over the last two years, we shrinked wrapped our clothes in vacuum bags using a hoover and put them in the boot and behind the seats. Its amazing how much you can get on board. Important to make sure you have access to a hoover wherever you unpack! You can get the bags from wilkos etc
Phil

[Olly2012]

Nice one Phil. That's a good thought and cheaper than a luggage rack. Still might try to swap the speaker unit behind the seats for a cubby box - need to find a suitable donor.

[henrycrun]

A daft question, but can one remove the passenger seat and still drive the car ?

Apart from losing the airbag system (to be reset after the seat is reinstalled) are there any other issues ?

[Southernboy]

....... you're OK to remove the seat... not a problem... you can even loop the circuits to avoid the airbag lights if you want.

[mnbrennan]

Or you could use straps. Saw a z3 with a new lawn mower in the boot with a strap holding the lid down this weekend. Took a photo but alas is too low res to crop. It looked ridiculous!

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

[Mike Fishwick]

If you are having storage problems perhaps you should look hard at what you plan to take - one soft holdall each is ample, with a small travel iron for 'her!' It is no use using suitcases, or packing mountains of clothes which will only be worn once.

We used to pack for a 4 to 6 week tour - without silly things such as luggage grids! There is a lot of storage space in a Z3, so long as yu use it wisely:

DOING IT IN A Z3 (Camping, that is!) Mike Fishwick

Quite apart from being cheaper than hotels, camping is the best way to see events such as the le Mans or Nürburgring 24-hour races, as one can camp alongside the circuit and really absorb the atmosphere, not to mention the local wine, without the bother of driving to and from the circuit.
While many people regard camping as the last bastion of the poverty-stricken, it is a quite normal mode of holiday accommodation throughout Europe, and will provide (particularly in a Z3!) a ready conversational starting point with other campers. Most people regard the Z3 as being highly unsuitable for long-distance touring, and an impossible choice when combined with camping. However, Heather and I have just returned from our fourth such tour, and look forward to the next!

Our camping equipment is extremely compact, which combined with the available volume found within the Z3 permits a nine-week tour to be viewed with equanimity. These are the keys to successful camping in a Z3 – compact equipment and use of the very considerable volume available in even BMW’s baby sports car. For example, one cannot guarantee the provision of loo rolls at every campsite, yet in front of the radiator, the front bumper can accommodate no less than seven!

Our equipment is based around Ajungilak ‘Mammoth’ sleeping bags (£100 each with liners) a Camping Gaz ‘Provence’ twin-burner stove (£30) with self-sealing cartridges, and a Wild Country ‘Ultimate Quasar’ tent (£400 but it almost floats!). Whatever tent you use, always take a real hammer (I prefer a two-pound lump hammer) and some tubular steel tent pegs augmented by a handful of six-inch nails for hard ground.
To these are added an aluminium table and a pair of canvas chairs, all of which fit into canvas bags of some 4 X 24 inches. Our flexible bucket and washing-up basin are beyond price. Car care is looked after by two sponges, kitchen towelling, small bottles of car shampoo, glass cleaner (particularly important) and interior vinyl cleaner.

All these, with cutlery, table cloths, plates and cups, plastic wine glasses, small stainless steel casseroles, groundsheets, clothes lines etc, fit easily into the boot. There is little space for anything else, but it does fit! When packing, the main thing to remember is that empty space is wasted space. Even the space within each roll-over bar, retained by the mesh wind break, can be used to good effect.

For an experiment this year we replaced the small Wild Country tent by a larger but cheap and surprisingly effective Eurohike ‘Tamar’ tent (£85 from Millets). Although larger, it was reduced to equivalent volume by compressing with seven nylon luggage straps. Another change for 2003 was the replacement of one stainless steel casserole with a larger aluminium item, electrically heated by a 600 watt element contained within its lid (manufactured by Remoska in the Czech Republic and sold by Lakeland) which proved to be real boon.

Another addition for this year was Heather’s laptop, with a good selection of DVD movies. This was stowed with 50 metres of cable (using a waterproof 13 amp socket and a blue 16 amp CEE plug) behind the passenger seat. The area behind each seat and its roll-over bar is filled by a small tapered (‘Anti-Snore!’) pillow, while that behind the driver’s seat contains books to be read by both of us. Flip-flops, essential wear in campsite showers, also fit behind the seats.

Toilet items and micro-fleece towels (small but very absorbent) are carried in a bag between the seats, while a MiniDisc player fits into the centre storage compartment. The associated external amplified speakers are also used with the laptop. Over 24 hours of music on MinDiscs fits into the glove compartment – try that with tapes or CDs! Needless to say, we use a MiniDisc player (Kenwood) in both our cars, and also at home.
Where do we fit our clothes? It comes down to unused volume again, this time in front of the seats below our knees, contained in soft and squashy holdalls. ‘Best’ clothes for hotel use etc are packed at the bottom, any creases being removed by a small travel iron, and also stored in a suit bag, hung behine on the seats frm a strap around the roll-over bar..

One needs few (or no!) clothes on the beach, so this year half of my bag was occupied by DVD movies, not to mention a charger for the batteries used by our torches, MiniDisc player and digital camera. Even though shoes can be stuffed with socks etc. they remain one of the worst items to pack, my solution being to take one pair, which are then worn to death! Waterproof jackets and fleeces are usually rolled and stowed in the convolutions of the folded hood, where they are safe at up to at least 130 mph.

Storage space is always at a premium in any modern car, and stowage for cameras is a real problem, particularly if one is addicted to the use of an SLR with a 28 mm wide angle lens. There is no ideal solution to this, and I generally stow the Nikon against my left knee, leaving Heather to be surrounded by the other cameras, her handbag, and various ‘essential’ items. Lots of maps are required on a long trans-European trip, and in the case of the Z3 an additional storage net was easily added in the drivers’ side footwell (approximately £17 from your BMW dealer).

That, then, is how we do it – a larger car would make it easier, but even a Z3 can provide a good basis for a rewarding holiday. See you at le Mans next year?

(For compact high-quality camping equipment, contact Les Madge at Travel-Dri Plus, on 01647-24523 or http://www.traveldri-plus.co.uk)