My Hot BMW

It was late August. As I drove my new BMW south from Yugoslavia into Greece, the temperature inside the car became hot. I punched the button to turn on the air-conditioner. Nothing happened. I punched the button again. No cold air came out.

I asked the young German girl I picked up in Thessalonika to try. She punched button. No cold air. The air-conditioner would not work.

It was a long, hot ride all the way to Athens. I had a booklet listing all the BMW dealers in Europe. I took the German girl to the pier where she could catch a ferry to Crete, then I drove to the Athens dealer. The head of the shop said, “Bring the car back Friday morning. The car is under warranty. We will fix it.”

I spent several days seeing the many historic sights in Athens. I climbed the Acropolis, where I took a photograph which looks the same as every other picture you’ve seen of the Parthenon. The other side is a total ruin. The temple remained perfect for 2,000 years, until Greece rebelled against the Turks in the 19th Century. The rebellious Greeks hid gunpowder inside the Parthenon. There was an explosion. The remarkable thing was half of it remained standing.

Friday was to be my last day in Athens. I took the car to the dealer. He told me not to come back until after 5 p.m. I spent the day at the archeological museum. The “primitive” marble statues, standing stiffly upright but with shapely drapery, were much more beautiful than photographs I saw in my college art appreciation class.

At 5 p.m. I returned to the BMW dealer. The shop was closed, but an attendant brought out my car. As it was under warranty, there was no charge.

The next morning I started north, driving towards Thermopylae. The air-conditioner worked perfectly.

I drove into cooler mountains in Yugoslavia. I punched the button to turn off the air-conditioner. Cold air continued to blow into my face. I tried again. Frigid air kept pumping out into the car. I turned the dial down as low as possible, but I could not turn the air-conditioner off.

I did not foresee five frustrating days in Yugoslavia, but from my experiences going through the country from Budapest to Belgrade and down to Greece, I did not want to take my car to be serviced in that dismal nation. (I was not surprised later when Yugoslavia broke apart into a half dozen warring countries.)

It would be a week before I attempted to get the air-conditioner fixed in Italy. That proved to be one of the most remarkable experiences in my life.