I’m sure I’m not the only one in the world to think this way, but every so often I’ll see a car I want, that really fits the bill for me, and hold back on acting on it because the angel on my right shoulder beats up the devil on my left, and I do nothing. That explains why in the last few weeks I’ve passively passed on a 1975 Alfetta GT, a 1969 Alfa Berlina, and now this car. Two of those are in my own back yard, and probably didn’t sell, but there are so many other things to do… home projects, moving, wedding planning, getting the Beta sedan through smog with an eye towards selling it, and hey, maybe spending a bit of time with friends and fiancee.
So let’s focus in on the most recent example of my tale of automotive woe. As you might have noticed from earlier posts, even reject cars from a popular marque pique my interest, and the Bavaria definitely qualifies here. I’ve written before about the many attractions of this model of car, and my only significant criteria with these are they be manual shift and reasonably rust-free, since the money’s not in them to fix their bodies up significantly. The most recent Bav to pop up is this 1972, for sale in Menlo Park for $2600.
Looks like a pretty clean car, if (apparently) missing some front-end trim bits and needing some elbow grease put into the paint. From this angle you can see some cool oddball alloys, which, along with the orange foglights, give it an aggressive seventies look. I can already see this car with a couple of Melee or Snowball stickers on it, and a nice coating of road dust, dirt, and bugs.
Here’s the intake side of the engine. Looks like the seller splurged on triple Webers, in addition to a freshly rebuilt engine, headers, electronic ignition, and upgraded cooling with electric fans and a custom radiator. It does suggest past cooling problems, which these cars are known for, but if the work was done properly there’s no reason it shouldn’t be reliable for a long time down the road. Parts/labor receipts are key here.
Appropriately, since the seller has put a lot of effort into the engine, we’ve got two shots of it. The car also has good tires and a new battery, so you should be set in the mechanical reliability department. As with many older European cars, the manual transmissions are more durable, so you can reasonably hope this one will last quite a while yet. Buy it, drive it, and if it’s good, look after the cosmetics for your own E9 coupe-on-a-budget.
Rusty But Trusty 
January 29, 2010 at 5:32 pm |
Been staring at this ad too — maybe it’s the perfect use for this here extra E3 kidney grille that I’ve been wondering what to do with…