Posts Tagged ‘BMW’

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European GTs, part 2 – 1980 BMW 633CSi

May 19, 2010

Recently, RustyButTrusty has been watching a lot of episodes of Wheeler Dealers. In case you haven’t heard of it, it’s a British show on Discovery where they buy an older enthusiast car, “restore” it, and sell it on at a profit. Who among you haven’t dreamed of doing that? I can say for sure that I have no ability in that area, instead sinking all my money into cars I sell for less than I bought them for… although to be truthful I have yet to sell one of my cars.

Anyway, one of the cars they featured recently was an E24 BMW 6-series, specifically a 635CSi. For £2000, they picked up a nice red example with cloth interior and automatic transmission. They cleaned it up nicely with leather seats from a parts car, some suspension fixes, replacing the 80s alloys with OEM wheels, and a new exhaust, and sold it on for a few hundred pounds profit. Now, £2000 is on the outside of our budget, but you can still find nice affordable examples if you’re willing to look around a bit. Looking for a car with a manual transmission (because really, what fun is an automatic?), I was able to find this tidy-looking example for sale for $2800 in Bloomington, CA (east of Los Angeles).

1980 BMW 633 CSi front

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You Stay Klassey, San Diego – 1969 BMW 2000 tilux Neue Klasse sedan

May 4, 2010

Here’s an interesting car… I can see the tagline now: The practicality of the Bavaria, with the sportiness of the 2002! Who could resist? It also seems like this could be a good competitor to an Alfa Giulia TI/Super, or the later Berlina… sporty, four doors, and the powerplant of its sportier sibling. Maybe some adventurous person could even drop in an engine from a 2002tii and a later five speed, so you’d have nearly the powertrain specs of the equivalent Alfa sedans, barring the more costly aluminum head/block and the twin cams.

But anyway, enough of my convoluted automotive fantasies. This 1969 2000 tilux is the final iteration of the Neue Klasse sedan as it was available in the US market. It’s got the wider taillights, and the rectangular Euro-market headlights. One interesting design feature on this model is how the clamshell-style trunk lid extends all the way forward to the trailing edge of the rear door. This Chamonix white car (along with a blue parts car with front-end damage) is listed for $2500 in Huntington Beach, CA, near Los Angeles.

1969 BMW 2000 tilux right

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So many cars, so little time – 1972 BMW Bavaria

January 29, 2010

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.

1972 BMW Bavaria front

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