The Bimmer I almost bought

Anything you’ve ever heard about BMWs being ultimate driving machines — it started with the model called the 2002 back in the 1960s and ’70s. The “neu Klasse” was BMW’s last attempt at redefining the brand into a premium sports sedan maker before meeting what would have been the struggling company’s demise, at least in the States. Fortunately, the product we got was downright amazing, and BMW’s marketing folks hit the sweet spot with letting people know it.

Everyone knows the rest of the story: BMW followed up with the 3 Series in the late 1970s and then skyrocketed in the 1980s with brand equity it had built. Baby Boomers started making money in the ’80s, bought 3 Series en masse, and brought the company to where it is today with sporty luxury cars. But it was the 2002 — not even any of BMW’s succeeding M cars — that started the revolution.

And it’s the 2002 I desire more than just about any other BMW ever made outside of the E46 M3. It’s going to be a while before I can afford one of those, though.

Such isn’t exactly the case with the diminutive ’70s sports sedan.

Three years ago, I found an ad on Craigslist for a 2002 and a BMW Bavaria, the predecessor to the 5 Series. They were being sold for $600 apiece in Butler, a small blue collar town just north of Pittsburgh.

Along with two friends, I went to check them out, the sun fading into dusk as we left for Butler. I had an idea of the area, thinking I’d be like walking into a scene from Deliverance, but it’d be worth it.

We got there sometime after 8 p.m., deep in a wooded area — just like I expected. The car ran when it was parked, or so the owner told me over the phone, but the heck if I could check that out, much less see the car. I couldn’t see anything other than a small porch light that barely shot light from the house.

I got out of the car by myself. My friends said that if I got my head blasted off by a shotgun, at least they’d be ready to take off quickly. Jason, the driver, wouldn’t even turn off the car, but he made sure to turn off the headlights. He kept as near to the end of the driveway as he could until the owner came out, a man who kicked over dirt-covered kiddie trikes left on the cobbled driveway. Was I going to die? Was this worth it?

It was. He was cordial. After we greeted one another and talked a bit, I started up my spiel, excited, eager to come home with a classic car.

“So where’s the 2002?”

“Over there. Had to park it out of the way.” He pointed into the darkness. Then, he turned on a flashlight, and sure enough, one of my dream cars sat in some bramble.

After Jason decided to grow a pair, he drove back up the driveway and shined his headlights on the car. It looked weathered, but I was smitten.

The owner lifted the trunk open.

“See, it’s all there, trunk closes. And the strut mounts are solid. Those things always go bad in these cars.”

I was growing more giddy by the second. Sure, the body panels looked like they were a bit rough, but the frame was solid. I’d keep it in my parents’ garage, fixing it up as I could. This car looked like it had some potential. We then walked to the front of it.

The owner pulled the clamshell hood open, breaking one of the rusted hinges apart in the process. Jason and my other friend, Dave, finally got out of the car. They looked around, checking out the car from a distance. This was my deal, my endeavor. They joked with one another, inaudibly, snorting as I checked out the straight-four under the hood. I went back to them before making my decision.

“So what do you think?” I asked Jason. He had built a 500+ horsepower 1994 Toyota Supra. He had experience with projects like this. I could trust him to have an honest opinion, too.

“No, man. Just no.”

“What?” I saw before me a car I could cruise in, escaping my worries in each corner carved. I saw a car that could become my baby.

“You know when you were checking out the car, Dave and I were laughing because a rat climbed out from under it right next to your foot. And dude, the interior smells like mold and shit.”

“The interior looked pretty solid to me,” I said.

“Yeah, but it smelled like mold and crap. I wouldn’t.”

I thought about it for a minute longer, asking the owner about the Bavaria, too. Turns out, it was an Alpina-tuned model — one of the first Alpinas sold in the U.S.

“I really, really want it,” I told him. “But I can’t. Sorry.” After our parting words, we left back for the ‘Burgh without the title to the car.

I saw a car I coveted. I longed for that car. To me, the 2002 is like that hot girl who sits next to you in class. You’re friends, you understand one another. But she’s always just out of reach. You cope with the disappointment however you can, likely by taking your mind off her as long as humanly possible. And then you relapse.

I looked at the pictures of the car after I loaded them on my computer just to make sure I made the right decision. I did. The car was a piece of crap, unfortunately. Much of the outside of that car was really salvageable. Pity.

But some months later, I would see a 2002tii in Oakland, just parked there. Perfect. Four-speed manual, perfect tan leather, lustrous burgundy paint. Call me a sad case, but I walked around the block several times until I discovered who owned it and asked him about it. It was a California car that he picked up a few years earlier for $12,000. Prices have fluctuated since he bought it, but they’re still not out of reach.

I’ve talked to owners of cars before — owners of Nissan GT-Rs, Corvette ZR1s, Bentleys, Bugattis, whatever — at shows, but I had never approached someone out of the blue to talk to them about their car before. Not like this.

The car drew me in, and while the closest things I own to a BMW are a few hats right now, I will own that car someday. I will.

Dream cars are like that, like that euphoric sensation when you meet someone who knocks you off your feet. The difference is that it’s a lot easier to write a three-, four-, or five-figure check for a car than it is open your mouth and ask for a girl to join you for a $4 cup of coffee. Rather pathetic, but it’s the truth.

Further, had I bought that BMW, my time with it would have been just like most other relationships people have in college: short-lived, expensive, and emotionally draining.

So I’ll just have to wait for something better.

Remembering the E39 BMW M5

The other day, I saw a silver BMW M5 parked on the curb, probably a 2001 or 2002 model. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. It looks like any other old BMW with the only except for the M-spec widemouth front bumper, some gunmetal-colored 18-inch wheels and four exhaust pipes. But that car, that visceral instrument of executive-class speed — I was smitten with its presence…mein Gott!

As I approached it, attempting to peer through its tinted windows without looking like I was some punk in search of a good carjack, I could feel my super-ego melting in my head. Replacing it, my id quietly chuckled with giddy amusement. And then drowning out that laughter, all I could hear was  the screaming “Woo hoo!” from Blur’s only hit song in the U.S.: “Song 2.”

The song largely found popularity in the late-1990s in college and sports arenas and again after BMW released a series of high-dollar short films starring Clive Owen and a fleet of BMWs with manual transmissions. In the film that featured “Song 2,” Star,  Owen’s character chauffeurs an over-the-top diva played by Madonna. Owen’s character takes “the star” in his BMW M5 instead of a limo to escort her to a film premier, tossing the boisterous broad around at high rates of speed all the while. Coincidentally as an aside, the short movie is directed by ex-Madge sex toy, Guy Ritchie. I’m sure Ritchie watched the film a few hundred times after he had finalized his divorce papers.

In any case, there’s something wholesomely invigorating about that reverberating low-fi melody coupled with images of a guy flicking a two-ton, 400-horsepower sedan sideways. Not like I’ve ever had fun in a car like that quite to the degree demonstrated in the movie, but when I had my chance to drive a 2002 M5 a few years ago, I made the most I could with as little time as I had with that ultimate driving machine.

The opportunity came about when I worked at a BMW dealership. There, I had to make sure all of the clean cars made it up to our main lot by the end of the day. Everyone else who worked in the wash bays had left for the day, so I had easy access to those M5 keys.

The lower lot where the car was out a good two miles from the dealership. I remember looking at the car, trying to think of it as just another 5 Series, just another task to do for my pay. But it wasn’t. It was a $75,000 sports sedan that I had only ever piloted in my dreams. It was the epitome of one of the last clean, simple designs BMW produced before “flame surfacing” and “Bangle Butts.” Simply, it was understated, awe-strkingly elegant — except for that gaping air duct that stretched across the front bumper, designed to shotgun as much air into its hand-built 4.9 liter V8 as possible. It was imposing. Looking at it from 50 feet away, I knew I’d have to drive it in a short while, and I was a little intimidated to be honest.

When I got into it, I calmed down a little. The  interior was basically the same as any other 540i’s. I had driven plenty of those at work. It didn’t feel like some coach-built hyper exotic. Phew. The only big differences were a suede headliner and a thick-rimmed steering wheel, cross-stitched in BMW’s blue, purple, and red racing colors — and the gauges. Okay, who cares about interior accouterments? This was an M5. For crying out loud, the only real interior difference that did matter were those gauges — the 180 mph speedometer and the 8,000 RPM tachometer.

Upon startup, the soundtrack that came with the car wasn’t Brit rock; it was German thunder that quickly settled into a low burble. I pulled it out of the lot slowly. It felt like any other E39 5 Series: taut, nimble and fairly smooth. Just because I could, I then took it around a quick bend with a little bit more vigor. “Ooh, this is addicting,” I thought. I took the next few bends in the road with a little more spirit each time. If there’s any truth to the cliché about BMWs having telepathic steering, this car proved it. I never had reason to panic in any tight turns on the unmarked Pittsburgh backroads, not even so much a correction in steering mid-corner.

When I got to the 3/4-mile straightaway before upper lot, I had built up enough confidence that I wanted to see what the car could really do. It was all warmed up and ready to go; I played it as safely as anyone could in an M5 that didn’t belong to them. But as Ferris Bueller said, “If you had access to a car like this, would you take it back right away? Neither would I.”

The only problem was that I happened to be following a Buick with a stereotypical Buick driver behind the wheel of it. I trailed him, going maybe 20 in a 25 zone, wasting what could have been the last shot I’d ever have to drive one of these cars. I imagine that’s what hell is like.

Fortunately, as the light went green, I stayed where I was to build some distance between our cars. I waited. And I waited some more.

As the light was about to turn red, I made the left onto the straight, getting into third gear quickly at about 25 mph. The coast was clear. I dropped the car down into second and planted my right foot to the floor. The car ripped through the tachometer sounding like a baritone banshee, screaming to redline. The shifter might as well have been BMW’s take on a ’60s Hurst Olds, crisp and accurate but with relatively long throws that begged me to muscle through each gear with furious anger. Before I knew it, I was going over 80 mph in a 25 zone without much effort or forethought. Oops.

And just a few minutes later, the ride was over. The car turned back into a perfect gentleman, and I turned back into a lot attendant that worked for an abusive boss and with hoodlum co-workers. For the few minutes I let it idle down at the lower lot, looking on in awe at this sinister car through the time I got to spend driving it, I felt like I was in control something really special. I could’ve been anywhere but the place that had been the home of the most unpleasant job I had ever had. I didn’t care; I got to drive a car that redefined the term sports sedan.

Likewise, when I drove that E39 M5, I didn’t see myself caring about Nurburgring times or comparing it to the newer E60 M5 to see what electronic niceties that now came in that $90,000 that weren’t even offered in the old car. Nor did I really wish for the older car to have the hundreds of suspension, throttle mapping or the transmission settings that available in the new car.

No, this car was just right, a perfect escape from the crap we’re force-fed in our daily lives. This M5 stood as a medical cure for any ailment, replacing boredom or depression with smiles, laughter, joy. This was the only time I ever had to unleash an E39 M5, but in driving a few others at more recommended speeds, the car always gave the same sensations, unwavering in both its confidence-building abilities and simple, natural mechanical feel.

It’s a car designed to give the driver absolute control directly — not to some active servo motors and yaw sensors for you. It has six rowable gears and three pedals on the floor — a combination BMW has mastered in recent years just to abandon for sequential this and dual clutch that. The E39 has little in the way of electronic distractions or loud beeps and bongs from sensors, leaving the only  sounds in the car to be its engine or hopefully a CD of Blur’s Greatest Hits. This is because it was designed at a time when BMW didn’t strive to build the most technologically advanced cars in the world. It was designed and built at a time when BMW strived to make the best driver’s cars in the world.

Full disclosure: Yes, I worked at a BMW dealership at one point, too. But that’s a story unto itself. That said, I am glad I am done with that job, as I have been for more than two years now, but there were just some cars I drove worth mentioning. For reference, the last car I drove at the place — a $117,000 M6 convertible — was done under the speed limit the whole time. Yes, really. Most of my stints in cars were not like this one at all, but then again, most of the cars I drove weren’t M cars. Just for reference, remember that speeding is illegal — don’t do it. And always let the car you’re driving warm up for some minutes if you’re planning on driving it like a bat out of hell. Lastly, just because Car and Driver does it doesn’t mean clutch-dumping is cool. It’s a waste of a good $3,000 clutch, as well as abusive to the car.