PUTTING MUNICH ON THE MAP
Before the Motorsport division stamped its badge on rapid BMWS, the 2002 and 3.0 CSL had already laid the spectacular groundwork
Martin Buckley compares BMWS 2002 and 3.0 CSL, two models that did more than most in establishing the Bavarian marque as a maker of drivers’ cars
If you had to define the essence of BMW, the essential ingredients that formed the cocktail of success that has beguiled enthusiasts for more than 50 years, you could do worse than take a long and lingering look at what makes the 2002 and 3.0 CSL tick. These cars, opposite ends of the firm’s early 1970s line up, epitomise the two extremes of most people’s idea of what a classic BMW is. One is an affordable sports saloon with cult appeal, the other a grand-touring glamour car, homologation special and now rich-man’s plaything that is finally achieving the star status it was tipped for 40-plus years ago. Both have their origins in the 1960s but achieved their full potential in the ’70s, confirming the modern BMW image in our imaginations.
With the 2002 and CSL the Bavarians were selling us the dream of a driver’s car that was rational, practical and safe, with high margins built in to the chassis design. These were sophisticated machines with an optimal balance of size and power that showed how refinement, build quality and driver appeal didn’t have to be mutually exclusive ideals. Perceived as expensive but, generally, seen to be worth the price of admission, the BMW of the 1970s was not an exotic animal in any ultimate sense. In these models the marque merely reasserted its formula of highly groomed, state-of-the-art chassis designs combined with best-in-class four- and six-cylinder engines; a policy that would serve the firm well for decades to come.
Certainly the 1962 1500 Neue Klasse four-door saloon was the original breakthrough BMW of the post-bubble-car generation, but it was only with the 2002 of 1968 that the Bavarians truly cracked North America. Sales of 339,084 through to 1977 put the brand on the map, taking it from an expensive oddity to perhaps the hottest property on the imported-car scene in the late 1960s and early ’70s. The enthusiast press loved them, and the 2002’s praises were sung perhaps most memorably by David E Davis in his test in April 1968’s Car and Driver, where he describes the joys of ‘sucking the headlights’ out of Big Healeys and GTOS in what he considered to be: ‘One of civilisation’s all-time best ways to get somewhere sitting down.’
If the 2002 spread the word with previously unheard of volume, the 1971-’75 3.0 CSL added
‘If the 2002 spread the word with previously unheard of volume, the 3.0 CSL added lustre and legend – only 1208 specials were ever built’
‘What the Stratos did for Lancia, the CSL did for BMW; its domination of the ETCC bestowed upon it legendary status’
lustre and legend. Only 1208 of these lightweight homologation specials were ever built, topping the BMW range at a price more than three times that of the not notably cheap 2002. Yet the CSL had a reach and an influence that was (and still is) out of all proportion to the number built.
What the Stratos did for Lancia, the CSL did for BMW. Its thrilling domination of the European Touring Car Championship (by the works, Alpina and Schnitzer teams against determined Ford Capri opposition) bestowed legendary status on a big coupé that was the public face of ’70s tin-top racing at its most exciting.
Has any subsequent single BMW model achieved the hero status of the 3.0 CSL? These days it tops most lists of greatest-ever Bimmers, increasingly even the ones compiled by people who were not born when it was a current model. It is certainly one of the most beautiful.
The story goes that fitting the 2-litre engine from the four-door saloons into the narrower and lighter two-door 1600 bodyshell was really just a means of giving US buyers a performance alternative to the twin-carb 1600 ti – a variant that was proving difficult to detox in readiness for the new Federal emissions laws. North American importer Max Hoffman came up with the idea of putting the big-bore engine in the little body, although it seems likely that BMW would have thought of it for itself eventually.
For a moderate increase in weight and cost, 2002 buyers got a higher-geared 107mph fourseater that would top 90mph in third and still return 30mpg. At £1600 on its UK introduction the 2002 was priced nose-to-nose with the Rover 2000TC and made a nonsense of the more specialised hot-shot family saloons such as the Lotus Cortina. While the more potent post1971 tii tends to take the headlines now, these mechanically injected 2002s are relatively rare: most buyers in period deemed the single-carburettor version, with nearly 100bhp per ton, more than adequate. In short order the 2002 evolved into a five-car family and was soon BMW’S biggest seller, usurping the 1600 as the brand’s entry model in the UK.
The Hairpin Company’s tangerine-hued 1972 example must be the best 2002 in the country, restored to a level of perfection (by an ex-p&a Wood employee) that makes its £35,000 price-tag seem almost modest. Seeing it close up, with all right details, reminds me how long it is since I have properly looked at a 2002.
In the ’80s they were ubiquitous enough to almost fade into the road-car landscape with a boxy, glassy shape that seemed conservative, even pedestrian, compared to Italian rivals. The bright orange paint cheers up this round-rear-light example, it being a classic BMW colour of the period promoted on the basis of safety and visibility rather than its psychedelic overtones.
With its tall roof and unbroken beltline it