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While BMW was a well-known name throughout Germany in the 1960s thanks to their prolific motorcycle history and pre-War exploits in the Mille Miglia and other sports car races with the 328, outside of Germany they remained fairly unknown in the 1960s. Indeed, in the late 1950s or early 1960s, if you asked someone to identify where the kidney grills belonged in Britain, they’d probably point you towards the BMW-derived Bristols of the day – straight copies of some of the first post-war BMWs, right down to the grill. So in the 1960s and 1970s, BMW went racing to try to spread the reputation of their engineering out of motorcycles or perhaps some veiled World War airplane references with their “New Class” sedans. It was independent tuners like Schnitzer and Alpina that first really started to get the small sedans noticed in Touring classes. While the large coupe based upon the New Class design wasn’t raced much in its day – efforts instead focusing on the smaller, lighter and similarly powered sedans – it’s none-the-less exciting to see a 2000CS that has been modified in the style of the period racers:
While we usually don’t like to show cars that are not at least good examples of the respective marques that they represent, occasionally some oddballs pop up that are just too good to pass up. Today is such a case, with two unique vehicles popping up on Ebay that rarely get seen at all. Unfortunately, both are in need of a fair amount of work, so depending on your comfort level I wouldn’t really consider either of these cars a turn key, collector vehicle as they stand. However, with the right about know-how, determination and a fair amount of work I think both of these cars could be resurrected to their former glory; certainly, both would bring smiles at shows wherever they went. Let’s look first at the rare duck of the two, the Bitter SC:
Time for another parts roundup, and today I’m focusing on some aftermarket and rare parts. There are some really desirable pieces here, and some pretty horrible looks (I’m looking at you, Kamei). What’s your favorite, what would you like on your ride or what would you like to see?
The “Batmobile” is a legendary car that helped to both define BMW’s place in global motorsports and to solidy its presence in the sports sedan realm. Sure, they had competed successfully for years in touring car and sports car races, not to mention substantial involvement in motorcycle racing. But the bread and butter of BMW’s 1980s reputation was built on their sporting nature, and that legacy was born in the 1970s touring cars. The CSL was a message to the world, much like the Porsche 911RS was – BMW was a major player, and here to stay. They’ve since built upon that racing legend, but enthusiasts look back upon these models as the ones that spawned the dreams of countless children – the lucky ones of which would go on to buy new BMWs in the 1980s. It’s not often that you see a well presented CSL with racing pedigree come up for sale, but there’s a stunning example available today:
Do you need a show car? We often write up very clean, fully restored and consequently very expensive examples of cars that are desirable, but there are many more than exist below pristine level. Generally if we post one of these cars there’s a large amount of feedback pointing out the flaws. Yesterday, a few of the GCFSB authors went to a local open house in our old – and flawed – cars. None of them are perfect; all have plenty of character from being driven over the years. They have stories about how they got various battle scars, strange modifications and unorthodox thinking to get around a problem or previous owner’s work. Despite this, driver quality cars have a charm that makes them desirable in their own right. Do I love perfect examples of older cars? Yes, absolutely – they’re awesome to see. But so are well presented drivers: