Junkyard Find: 1973 BMW 2002
Some of these Junkyard Find posts result in plaintive emails (usually several months after the car has been crushed) from car owners in far-off places: “I have been looking for parts for this car for years. I am in (the Netherlands, the Maldives, the Upper Peninsula, etc.). Please send me the contact information for this junkyard so that I can have them ship me the (impossible-to-find parts).” The record-holder is this 1981 Chrysler LeBaron, which has resulted in at least a dozen emails from obsessive Malaise LeBaron restorers. I suspect this car is going to be another example of this phenomenon. So, if you found this post on Google and it’s later than, say, June 2012, this BMW has been melted down in a Chinese steel factory!
2002s really aren’t all that rare in self-service wrecking yards, since thrashed ones aren’t particularly valuable and hopeless project cars eventually get sold for scrap after a couple of decades in the back yard. I see a half-dozen Crusher-bound 2002s in such yards every year. This one is a rare automatic-transmission car. Why would any 2002 shopper have selected the slushbox?
The Europeans weren’t ready for the early-70s US-market requirement for a Fasten Seat Belt light, so they had to add afterthought-style lights like this one. It got even worse in 1974.
This car doesn’t look rusty, but it would have cost plenty to make it nice. Since it’s tough to justify spending ten grand to make a $6,000 car, the price of scrap steel pushed this never-to-be-finished project onto the tow truck’s hook.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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This car reminds me of the second worst mistake of my life. I had test driven a '73 2002 and put down a deposit, when I decided to wait for the '73 240Z (Datsun, to those of under a certain age). Turns out the Datsun for '73 was one of the worst lemons ever. The delivery delay was due to the importer having to play with the cars to get them to pass the smog regulations. Horsepower fell from 145 to 125. Driveability was so poor that the plastic choke handle wore out. In the eleven months I had it, it did not run for 30 consecutive days. Datsun had installed a much higher temperature thermostat and run the fuel lines (from a mechanical pump) alongside the engine block.....vapor lock even on cool days, and rendered the air conditioning unusable. Power and Driveability didn't return until the '75s when the engine went from 2.4 liters to 2.6 liters in '74 and finally to 2.8 liters in '75 with some rudimentary fuel injection and electric fuel pumps. The BMW engines ran with minimal smog modifications. Yes the price for this '73 was in the low $5K range, but so was the $4200 Z car when the dealers tarted them up with a chrome bumper bar, bigger tire and wheel combinations and various useless coatings. By the way, my Z car tire upgrade was the Firestone 500, just to add icing to the cake.
I've never seen a 2002 in a junkyard. Of course, I have seen the world's rustiest 2800 CS, which was quite amazing. I took the kidneys, of course.