Originally published in Car and Driver magazine in April 1968.
As I sit here, fresh from the elegant embrace of BMW’s new 2002, it occurs to me that something between nine and ten million Americans are going to make a terrible mistake this year. Like dutiful little robots they will march out of their identical split-level boxes and buy the wrong kind of car. Fools, fools! Terrible, terrible, I say. Why are you blowing your money on this year’s too-new-to-be-true facelift of the Continental / Countess Mara / Sprite / Sprint Status Symbol / Sting Ray / Sex Substitute / Mainliner / Belair / Newport / Overkill / Electra / Eldorado / Javelin / Toad / GTO / GTA / GTB / GTS / GTX / Reality Blaster / Variant / Park Lane / Park Ward / Ward-Heeler / XK-E / Dino / Dud car when you should be buying a BMW 2002, I ask.
Down at the club, Piggy Tremalion and Bucko Penoyer and all their twit friends buy shrieking little 2-seaters with rag tops and skinny wire wheels, unaware that somewhere, someday, some guy in a BMW 2002 is going to blow them off so bad that they’ll henceforth leave every stoplight in second gear and never drive on a winding road again as long as they live.
In the suburbs, Biff Everykid and Kevin Acne and Marvin Sweatsock will press their fathers to buy HO Firebirds with tachometers mounted out near the horizon somewhere and enough power to light the city of Seattle, totally indifferent to the fact that they could fit more friends into a BMW in greater comfort and stop better and go around corners better and get about 29 times better gas mileage.
Mr. and Mrs. America will paste a “Support Your Local Police” sticker on the back bumper of their new T-Bird and run Old Glory up the radio antenna and never know that for about 2500 bucks less they could have gotten a car with more leg room, more head room, more luggage space, good brakes, decent tires, independent rear suspension, a glove box finished like the inside of an expensive overcoat and an ashtray that slides out like it was on the end of a butler’s arm—not to mention a lot of other good stuff they didn’t even know they could get on an automobile, like doors that fit and seats that don’t make you tired when you sit in them.
So far as I’m concerned, to hell with all of ’em. If they’re content to remain in the automotive dark, let them. I know about the BMW 2002, and I suspect enthusiasts will buy as many as those pink-cheeked Bavarians in their leather pants and mountain-climbing shoes would like to build and ship over here. Something between nine and ten million squares will miss out on this neat little 2-door sedan with all the cojones and brio and elan of cars twice its size and four times its price, but some ten thousand keen types will buy them in 1968, so the majority loses for once.
The 2002 is BMW’s way of coping with the smog problem. They couldn’t import their little 1600 TI, because their smog device won’t work on its multi-carbureted engine. So they stuffed in the smooth, quiet 2-liter (single carburetor) engine from the larger 2000 sedan and—SHAZAM—instant winner!
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To my way of thinking, the 2002 is one of modern civilization’s all-time best ways to get somewhere sitting down. It grabs you. You sit in magnificently-adjustable seats with great, tall windows all around you. You are comfortable and you can see in every direction. You start it. Willing and un-lumpy is how it feels. No rough idle, no zappy noises to indicate that the task you propose might be anything more than child’s play for all those 114 Bavarian superhorses.
Depress the clutch. Easy. Like there was no spring. Snick. First gear. Remove weight of left foot from clutch. Place weight of right foot on accelerator. The minute it starts moving, you know that Fangio and Moss and Tony Brooks and all those other big racing studs retired only because they feared that someday you’d have one of these, and when that day came, you’d be indomitable. They were right. You are indomitable.
First stoplight. I blow off aging Plymouth sedan and 6-cylinder Mustang. Not worthy of my steel. Too easy. Next time. Big old 6-banger Healey and ’65 GTO. GTO can’t believe I’m serious, lets me get away before he opens all the holes and comes smoking past with pain and outrage all over his stricken countenance. Nearly hits rear-end of truck in panicky attempt to reaffirm virility. Austin-Healey a different matter. Tries for all he’s worth, but British engineering know-how and quality-craftsmanship not up to the job. I don’t even shift fast from third to fourth, just to let him feel my utter contempt.
Nobody believes it, until I suck their headlights out. But nobody doubts it, once that nearly-silent, unobtrusive little car has disappeared down the road and around the next bend, still accelerating without a sign of the brake lights. I learn not to tangle with the kids in their big hot Mothers with the 500 horsepower engines unless I can get them into a tight place demanding agility, brakes, and the raw courage that is built into the BMW driver’s seat as a no-cost extra.
What you like to look for are Triumphs and Porsches and such. Them you can slaughter, no matter how hard they try. And they always try. They really believe all that jazz about their highly-tuned, super-sophisticated sports machines, and the first couple of drubbings at the hands of the 2002 make them think they’re off on a bad trip or something. But then they learn the awful truth, and they begin to hang back at traffic signals, pretending that they weren’t really racing and all. Ha! Grovel, Morgan. Slink home with your tail between your legs, MG-B. Hide in the garage when you see a BMW coming. If you have to race with something, pick a sick kid on an old bicycle.
But I don’t want you to get the notion that this is nothing more than a pocket street racer. The BMW 2002 may be the first car in history to successfully bridge the gap between the diametrically-opposed automotive requirements of the wildly romantic car nut, on one hand, and the hyperpragmatic people at Consumer Reports, on the other. Enthusiasts’ cars invariably come off second-best in a CU evaluation, because such high-spirited steeds often tend to be all desire and no protein—more Magdalen than Mom.
CU used to like the VW a lot, back when it was being hailed as the thinking man’s answer to the excesses of Detroit, but now that the Beetle has joined Chevrolet at the pinnacle of establishment-acceptance, it’s falling from CU’s favor. But the BMW 2002 is quite another matter. It is still obscure enough to have made no inroads at all with the right-thinking squares of the establishment. It rides like a dream. It has a surprising amount of room inside. It gets great gas mileage. It’s finished, inside and out, like a Mercedes-Benz, but it doesn’t cost very much. All those qualifications are designed to earn the BMW a permanent place in the Consumer hall of fame. But for the enthusiasts—at the same time, and without even stepping into a phone booth to change costume—it goes like bloody hell and handles like the original bear. No doubt about it, the BMW 2002 is bound to get Germany back into the CU charts, to borrow a phrase from the pop vernacular.
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