BMW runs driving schools at two sites in the United States and hands new cars over at
both. This page is built from what BMW told American buyers about them in its own brochures
— the tracks, the courses, and how vehicle delivery works — rather than from current
marketing, and it says plainly which parts of the picture we cannot verify.
Two locations, one on each coast
The 2016 3 Series brochure describes the
arrangement as clearly as any document in our archive:
“Explore the limits of a BMW and yourself at the BMW Performance Driving School, now
in two locations. Our East Coast school, located in Spartanburg, South Carolina, features a
two-mile track with decreasing and increasing radius turns, elevation changes and
straightaways. It also includes a polished concrete skid pad and five water walls to avoid.
The School’s close proximity to our factory also allows you to pick up your new BMW directly
and drive it home. On the West Coast, BMW has built an exclusive paddock and track area at
The Thermal Club, located in Thermal, California. Spanning over 30 acres, the 1.6-mile road
course has many of the Spartanburg features, plus beautiful California sunshine.”
| Spartanburg, South Carolina | Thermal, California | |
|---|---|---|
| Track | Two miles | 1.6-mile road course |
| Site | The BMW Performance Center | Paddock and track area at The Thermal Club, over 30 acres |
| Features named | Increasing and decreasing radius turns, elevation changes, straightaways, polished concrete skid pad, five water walls | “Many of the Spartanburg features” |
| Next to the factory? | Yes — Plant Spartanburg | No |
The proximity point is the one that matters most. Spartanburg is where every
X5, X6 and
X7 sold anywhere in the world is built, and the driving school
sits beside it. That is why the same site does both jobs — teaching and handing over
cars.
What the courses are
BMW’s brochures name three tiers, and the naming has been stable for at least a decade:
- Teen School — the 2019 full-line brochure notes that “Teen school
is available for young drivers”. - Driver’s School — the general course.
- M School — the performance course.
The 2014 M5 brochure is the most specific about
what M School consists of. It “teaches you what high-performance driving is all about. How
to slalom. How to drift. How to push an Ultimate Driving Machine to the limits” —
under “the expert guidance of professional driving instructors” — and covers
“aggressive handling techniques and advanced braking skills in your choice of One-Day or
Two-Day M Schools”. Graduates could then take “two full days of Advanced M School”.
So the M ladder in that era was three rungs: One-Day, Two-Day, then Advanced as a
separate two-day course requiring the earlier one.
The range widened beyond cars. The
2019 full-line brochure records that
“On- and off-road instruction for BMW Motorcycles is offered”, and shows “a BMW X3 tackles
the off-road course” — so by then the site had an off-road course as well as a
track.
Performance Center Delivery
The second thing the Performance Center does is hand over cars, and BMW sold it as an
experience rather than a collection.
The 2011 5 Series brochure sets the
scene: “Just beyond the foothills of the Carolinas’ Blue Ridge Mountains lies the BMW
Performance Center. This sprawling, modern complex houses the world-famous BMW Performance
Driving School, as well as the Zentrum Museum, BMW Boutique” — and describes the
delivery itself as including dinner and an overnight stay at a first-class hotel before the
handover.
Two things follow from that. A Performance Center Delivery is a scheduled visit rather
than a dealership pickup, and the site has a museum and shop attached to it, which makes it
somewhere to go even if you are not collecting a car.
The brochures set this alongside European Delivery, its opposite number.
The 2019 full-line brochure describes taking delivery in Munich instead: “After a VIP tour
of BMW’s world-class facilities, you’ll pick up your vehicle at the BMW Welt and embark on a
thrilling drive around Europe. We’ll then ship your vehicle home to you.” That programme
starts at Munich, and we cover the site it operates from in
the BMW Munich plant and headquarters.
What we are not going to tell you
Three things, and it is worth being explicit about each because they are the things most
pages on this subject state confidently.
Prices. The brochures in our archive describe the schools and do not
print course fees. Prices change every year, vary by course and by location, and are not
recorded in any dataset we can verify. Any figure on this page would be a figure copied from
somewhere else and re-dated.
Whether a school is included with an M purchase. BMW has at various
times bundled a driving school with the purchase of an M car, and the terms have changed.
None of the brochures we hold states it as a standing offer, so we are not going to describe
it as one. This is a question for a BMW dealer about the specific car and the specific model
year.
The current course list. Everything above is what BMW published between
2011 and 2019, which is the period our brochure archive covers.
The schools have almost certainly changed since. Treat this page as a documented account of
what the programme was, not as a current timetable.
One number that was in the brochure and did not survive: the 2011 5 Series brochure
describes the complex by its construction cost, and the digits are lost in the scanned text
— it reads “$ million BMW Performance Center” with the figure missing. We are not
going to fill that gap with a guess.
Why a manufacturer runs a driving school
It is worth noting what the Performance Center is for, because it explains why it sits
where it does.
BMW built its US manufacturing at Spartanburg in 1994 and the plant has become the
company’s largest, and the sole global source for the X5, X6 and X7. A driving school and a
delivery centre next door turn a factory into somewhere customers travel to. The brochures
make the connection explicitly — the 2016 3 Series text points out that the school’s
“close proximity to our factory also allows you to pick up your new BMW directly and drive
it home”.
The Thermal site is the opposite arrangement: not BMW property with a factory attached
but “an exclusive paddock and track area” built inside somebody else’s club, chosen for
climate and for reach into the western half of the country.
Common questions
Where is the BMW Performance Center?
Two locations: Spartanburg, South Carolina, next to BMW’s US factory, and The Thermal
Club at Thermal, California.
How long is the track at the BMW Performance Center?
Two miles at Spartanburg, with a polished concrete skid pad and five water walls. The
California course is 1.6 miles on a site of over 30 acres.
What courses does the BMW Performance Driving School run?
The brochures name Teen School, Driver’s School and M School, with M School offered as
One-Day and Two-Day courses plus a separate two-day Advanced M School. Motorcycle
instruction, on- and off-road, is also offered.
What is BMW Performance Center Delivery?
Taking delivery of a new BMW at the Performance Center rather than at a dealership. The
2011 brochure describes it as including dinner and an overnight hotel stay before the
handover, at a site that also houses the Zentrum Museum and the BMW Boutique.
How much does BMW M School cost?
We do not publish a figure. The brochures we hold describe the courses without printing
prices, and course fees change year to year. Ask BMW directly.
Is the driving school free when you buy an M car?
BMW has bundled a school with M purchases at various times, but none of the brochures in
our archive states it as a standing offer, so we are not going to describe it as one. Check
with a dealer for the specific model year.
Sources
- Original US-market BMW brochures held in this site’s archive, quoted directly: the 2016 3 Series for the two locations and track descriptions, the 2014 M5 for the M School course structure, the 2011 5 Series for Performance Center Delivery and the site’s facilities, and the 2019 full-line brochure for the motorcycle and off-road instruction and for European Delivery.