WE’VE BOUGHT A BMW M635 CSi SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO

Report 2: dealing with the underlying problems

If the coronavirus could be transferred between cars, my garage may as well be called the Wuhan Automotive College. No amount of hand sanitiser could’ve prevented this pandemic; it’s taken me a solid 31 years of terrible car buying to reach this point.

The epicentre lies firmly with the Asian corner of the garage. My R34 GT-R needs a new cylinder head and the RX-7 a whole new rotary engine. Having acted relatively fast, the German corner avoided full quarantine in the form of a new boot release (E61 M5) and new exhaust valve (S600 AMG).

The M635 CSi has been back under the knife this month, though fortunately not served up as soup. It is riddled with a virus, however. Thanks to leading surgeon Ron Kiddell from RK Tuning in Essex, it turns out the BMW’s issue is down to a faulty ECU.

Thanks to Ron’s heroism, I’ve been able to self-isolate from the comfort of my own home; a proper result seeing as I’ve run out of parking on my driveway.

Unsurprisingly, it’s quite difficult to find a new ECU for a car they only made 4,088 examples of some 30-plus years ago. The solution? One of two avenues. The first (and most affordable) is to send off the ECU to be remanufactured – the mask and washy hands approach. The second involves replacing the ECU in its entirety for a standalone system such as Omex or MoTeC – expensive and time-consuming, but with the added bonus of vastly improving the engine’s running and preventing the issue from reoccurring. Basically, getting on a flight to Antarctica for the next few months.

For the time being I’ve chosen the easier route, given the initial diagnosis pointing to water ingress as opposed to a complete ECU failure. But if that doesn’t work – because it inevitably won’t – it’ll be full lobotomy time. Assuming the world hasn’t descended into an episode of The Purge controlled by Andrex CEO Tristram Wilkinson.

WHO’S GETTING MARRIED?

Nobody, but I should be so lucky to have such a fine old thing as this immaculate ‘58 S1 Continental Flying Spur to ferry me around on my wedding day. Back when it was new more than 60 years ago, it cost its first owner a whopping... £8,034 – 10 times the average UK salary, or about £195,000 in 2020 money. Today’s Flying Spur is relatively cheap in comparison – at £168,300 it’s only around five times the average UK salary.

LOOKS LIKE YOU GET A LOT MORE CAR FOR YOUR MONEY, TOO

The Flying Spur is physically far bigger than the S1 – longer, wider and heavier – but cars are just bigger nowadays. Easier to drive, too, thanks chiefly to a steering wheel and pedals that have an actual impact on a car’s speed and direction. An alarmingly sudden impact, in the case of the massively fast, incredibly capable new 207mph Flying Spur.

The S1 is a honey, but you may as well open the driver’s door and use wind resistance to slow you down, for all the good the brakes do. The 4.9-litre straight-six, which is beautifully quiet and smooth, pushes through them like a hot knife through butter. And that’s if you can find the pedal – anyone with normal-sized man feet will have serious problems moving between accelerator and brake because the handbrake assembly is in the way.

THAT SOUNDS SUB-OPTIMAL

It is. But as is the case with old cars, you can’t help but forgive it. Largely because of what a lovely thing it is to be in. See, while you could buy a ‘normal’ S-series Continental back in the Fifties, the especially wealthy often ordered theirs from specialist coachbuilders. HJ Mulliner was one such coachbuilder, which in fact coined the name ‘Flying Spur’ for its more elegantly designed, richly appointed four-door. This is one of the 217 cars it built between 1955 and 1959.

IS IT MORE COMFORTABLE THAN THE NEW CAR?

In some ways, yes. Take the seats – the new car’s adjust in many ways and can heat, cool and massage the occupants. But the old car’s are just so beautifully soft. You sink into them, in the same way you might a favourite armchair. Then there’s the fixtures and fittings. The new car is richly appointed, but the S1 is in another league with wood everywhere – and big blocks of it, not just veneer – the thickest carpets you’ve ever seen, beautiful art deco light fixtures and solid metal (maybe even silver) switchgear.

Independent, specialist coachbuilders are no more. But Mulliner lives on as part of Bentley itself – the bit you go to if you want something properly bespoke. The 12-off Bacalar is its first creation. Let’s see what’s next.