Welcome to the 2023 Season

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Published: 19 March 2023

The Chapter has a number of driving events as well as socials planned for the upcoming year. We begin April with a Private Tour of the Restoration and Preservation Facility of the Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum.

The beginning of May has a two-event weekend:  The annual winery driving tour through several northeastern Ohio counties on Saturday and then co-hosting a Street Survival school on Sunday.

We still are finalizing our next annual Show N Shine in June; details should be forthcoming by April's end.

July holds both our annual return as the featured marque at the Wednesday night Gervasi Cruise-In as well as all the events at the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix.

Late summer and early fall have drives and visits in the works.

In addition, we have listed some Events of Interest, which we aren't hosting but which might be of interest to the membership.

Make certain you keep up on all events by checking our left-column for links to the most current 5 events.  For a list of all currently scheduled activities, go to the top navigation bar, click Chapter Info, then scroll down to and click List All Chapter Events. If you are not receiving our email blasts, make certain your email address is updated in National's database; just click here and follow the directions to login.

Origins of Northern Ohio Chapter

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Published: 09 October 2016

When early BMW Car Club of America members joined the national organization in the mid-1970s, they became members of a local entity which was rather unique at the time. While most chapters were located around metropolitan areas, Ohio had one of the first—if not the first—statewide chapter, Buckeye.

After attending meetings and events in the Columbus area for a time, our lifetime member John Franklin contacted members in Cleveland, Akron, and other northeastern Ohio areas and created the Cleveland/Akron Area to have more localized events and management. At approximately the same time, members in the Cincinnati region also organized regionally as an Area within Buckeye.

Cleveland/Akron monthly meetings initially were held at the Franklin home and later in area restaurants. To pull members from Cleveland’s western suburbs, later meetings were held at the Elegant Hog—the current location of the Windham Hotel.

In the early 1980s, the Columbus Area turned over management of Buckeye Chapter to the Cleveland/Akron Area.  In the late 1980s-early 1990s, the Cincinnati Area became the managing force for Buckeye.

After Buckeye Chapter hosted their first BMWCCA OktoberFest, members of the Cleveland/Akron Area requested secession from Buckeye Chapter. The intention was to concentrate activities and governance in a more localized area, believing this would better serve local members. This request for secession was one of the first of its type for the national organization.

In late fall 1991 with agreement from the remaining Areas of Buckeye Chapter, Northern Ohio Chapter was formed, encompassing Ohio postal zip codes from 44000 to 44999, which corresponds to the northeastern quadrant of the state. The general territorial area covers from Castalia-Sandusky to Galion-Mansfield to Dover-New Philadelphia over to the Pennsylvania border and northward to the shores of Lake Erie.