Camping in a Z3

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.

Heather shows our compact camping equipment

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.

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 www.traveldri-plus.co.uk)