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What's the best way to teach new owners of BMWs how to drive their cars? Or BMW personnel how to sell them? The company's answer to both sides of the sales equation lies across the highway from its Greer, South Carolina, assembly facility, in a new learning campus called the BMW Performance Center.

The new BMW Performance Center, a 60,000 square-foot facility built on 134 acres, is unique among automakers. The $12 million investment includes a domestic delivery center; a vehicle dynamics/active safety driving school; and a center for corporate and retail professional development activities geared at a university-styled level.

An international delivery program, similar to the concept that BMW offers through its international headquarters in Germany, is planned to be available for customers starting at the end of August. "U.S. customers will be able to take delivery of any BMW automobile or motorcycle at BMW’s first tourist delivery center outside of Munich. They will also be able to take advantage of some compelling tours and packages," says Jack Pitney, manager of Corporate Communication for BMW of North America, Inc. "We will offer some interesting vacation packages to South Carolina and the ‘New South,’" Pitney added.

BMW buyers participating in the program pay the usual destination charge but receive a wide array of personal services that include airport pickup, hotel accommodations and a complimentary dinner; a personalized tour of the Zentrum museum and the BMW manufacturing plant; two to three hours of driver training with a professional driver; as well as the opportunity to participate in tour packages developed through the South Carolina Bureau of Tourism and Travel. Tours range from exploring the "nooks and crannies of the south" to the "extreme package", which offers kayaking, fly-fishing and rock climbing, among other sports.

The 1.7-mile safety driving school is designed to create over 35 different driving experiences and includes a skid pad and autocross, along with circuits for driver safety, accident avoidance and lifestyle applications. Unique at the BMW track is a "waterfall accident avoidance maneuvers" section of the road course. As drivers approach a stretch of dry pavement, walls of water spring up from various positions on the tarmac to simulate obstacles or road hazards as a technique to train for safe and responsive emergency avoidance maneuvers.

For the motorcycle crowd, BMW has partnered with the Motorcycle Safety Foundation for its new motorcycle safety course.

Scheduled to open later in the year is an "Other Roads" driving course, designed specifically for BMW’s all-new sport utility vehicle, the X5. This dirt course, developed by the architect that designed Euro Disney, will train drivers to maximize the handling characteristics of this new all-wheel-drive sport-ute over a wide variety of obstacles or "events" on an off-road course.

As part of the "Top Gun" training program for BMW Center employees, the new BMW facility provides classrooms for operational and technical teaching and professional development activities, including a service shop and body shop to train apprentices in paint and restoration techniques.

All visitors to the center will be able to visit the BMW Museum, a bistro and a boutique with a host of lifestyle products and BMW accessories. They don't have to take delivery of a new BMW while they're there -- but certainly, BMW hopes a first visit won't be their last.