1975 BMW 2002tii
Yes, owners of classic cars still drive them on the street during the winter in Denver (though we haven’t seen any real snow yet); I spotted this rare Bavarian at the park yesterday.
It’s nowhere near show quality, but it’s a solid, running example of a car you almost never see outside of shows and vintage races. I’m guessing that it gets driven regularly, so I’ll take it over any trailer queen.
I’m guessing on the exact model year here; the 5 MPH crash bumpers indicate that we’re looking at a 1973-75 model, but you’d to be a far scarier more devoted BMW zealot aficionado than I’ll ever be to nail down the precise year from these photos (yes, I know, I should have shot the dash).
Even though this car came right out of the Malaise Era, its 1990cc engine was rated at a respectable-for-its-time 125 horsepower. Compare that to the ’75 Corvette’s base engine, which displaced nearly three times as much and made 165 horsepower (a 205-horse 350 was optional).
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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Still the only car I ever got emotional about selling...actually bawled as i was driving to meet the prospective new owner...it got so bad that my then-wife told me to simply keep the car. I felt (kind of) bad for the kid that was coming to buy it, but I just couldn't part with it. Growing up, a 2002 was the ONLY car I wanted...blame that on our landlord in Karlsruhe who only drove BMW and introduced me to the love that was to be a small, boxy Bimmer. My 1974 replaced the spot in my garage occupied by a (then two year old) 1991 Sentra SE-R, and I never regretted selling the Nissan for the much older BMW. That Baikal Blue 2002 was my daily driver for many years, with only a clutch failure to report (and I was still able to get the car safely to a mechanic, despite that). I've never driven a car that I felt more "right" in, and to this day, find myself longingly looking at ads for well-preserved variants, hoping for the day when I can add one to my household again.
I drove one of these for years. It was light and handled great, albeit the 4 cylinder engine was a bit weak. The most serious flaw was the lack of a 5th gear. I always found myself reaching for 5th and letting the clutch out in, eck 3rd???. This happened to me all the time, although I'd often realize what I was doing before letting the clutch out. The car begged to be accelerated at all times.