1977 BMW 630CSi with 17,000 Miles

Update 8/30/18: A year after I originally wrote this car up at $20,000, it is back on a no reserve auction format and should sell this time if someone clicks the opening bid point at $7,500.

A decade on from the takeover of Hans Glas GmbH, BMW put the Dingolfing production line and engineers to work on their new big coupe. This allowed them to build the design in-house, instead of subcontracting construction of the 2-door as they had with the E9 to Karmann. The E24 was released in 1976, and compared to the Glas V8 they had borrowed for their premium product in the late 1960s it was thoroughly modern. Paul Bracq penned the lines as he did for all BMWs of the period, and but while there was a strong family resemblance between the 3- ,5- ,6- and 7-series cars, the E24 was where the long, low lines and sweeping greenhouse worked the best.

While initially the car was introduced to the world with many of the items from the E9 carried over, the U.S. got a special one-off for its introduction year. The 630CSi was brought in 1977 with a D-Jetronic fuel injected version of the M30B30 which itself had also seen duty in the E9. With slightly lower compression and emissions equipment fitted, it produced 176 horsepower and was shared with the contemporary 530i until 1978. But in late 1977, BMW yanked the 630 from the U.S., replacing it with the more powerful 633CSi.

While BMW’s sales between 1970 and 1977 had doubled (14,574 total vehicles to 28,766), the number of early 6s that made the journey was still relatively small. Couple that with thermal reactor failure that was a demise of many of the early U.S.-bound 3.0s, and of course the big nemesis of the 70s BMW – rust – and finding a lovely example of the early E24 here in the U.S. is quite difficult:

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1977 BMW 630CSi on eBay

Year: 1977
Model: 630CSi
Engine: 3.0 liter inline-6
Transmission: 3-speed automatic
Mileage: 16,968 mi
Price: No Reserve Auction

The 630 CSI is the first generation of BMW’s legendary E24 coupes, it is considered one of the high end professional cars of the 1970’s-80’s. This incredible car has an endless face and performance to match it’s great looks.
This 1977 specialty BMW proudly showcases it’s original documented miles of only 17K.
The 2 door coupe that was only manufactured for exactly 1 year has just one previous owner before myself.
This rare antique comes with brand new tires and brakes for your ultimate driving experience. Internally, the car has a custom white headliner with a golden tag on it’s top. This exceptional headliner adds to the exquisite image of the car.
The car works magnificent with it’s exceptional interior and exterior. This collectors car would be an amazing fit for anybody.

Though not listed, I’m pretty sure the color of this example is Reseda Green. It wears later BBS Mahle wheels likely borrowed from a 633, as the car originally should have worn the turbine wheels as shown in the trunk shot. Inside is black leather and, quite unfortunately, an automatic 3-speed. There’s little description as to what has occurred to this car over the past 40 years and why it’s traveled such a short distance in its life. The seller does mention the brakes, tires and custom headliner for which no photos are supplied, but there’s no mention of the thermal reactors. The easy solution is to mount later 3.2/3.4 manifolds that have been slightly modified, but whether this was done or not remains a mystery. The presentation of the car similarly lacks detail, or at the very least detailing. The pinstripe was obviously added later and it appears to wear period dealer-installed Bosch foglights, but it’s hard to get a good sense of the state of the interior or exterior from the shots. It’s claimed to be exceptional, but in some of the photos their appears to be a large amount of distortion in the body, which immediately has me wondering about an older respray.

Amazingly, though it’s often hard to get exact comps on cars from this period today, we have a pretty good one. We featured a exact twin of this car in 2014; low mileage, Reseda Green, black leather and automatic but with the original wheels. Bidding went up to the low-teens at that point. In 2015, that chassis was picked up by BaT and bought, then resold via their auction system for $15,785 one year ago. That car was a bit more original, and though it had over double the miles the presentation was better. Today’s example may be outstanding in its low mileage, but we can say with a fair amount of certainly that the Buy It Now is a minimum of $5,000 too high.

-Carter