'02 - Turn Your Hymnals to 2002

Com a devida vénia, transcrevo no meu blogue o texto que foi escrito por David E. Davis, Jr. sobre o BMW 2002 em Janeiro de 1970:

1968 BMW 2002

Turn Your Hymnals to 2002–David E. Davis, Jr. Blows His Mind on the Latest from BMW.

January 1970

BY DAVID E. DAVIS JR.

If it wasn't already German, I'd be tempted to say it could be as American as Mom's apple pie or Rapp Brown's carbine. Not American in the same sense as the contemporary domestic car, with all its vast complexity and nouveau riche self-consciousness, but American in the sense of Thomas Edison and a-penny-saved-is-a-penny-earned and Henry Ford I (before his ego overloaded all the fuses and short-circuited his mind and conscience). The 2002 mirrors faithfully all those basic tenets of the Puritan ethic on which our Republic was supposedly based. It does everything it's supposed to do, and it does it with ingenuity, style, and verve.

In its unique ability to blend fun-and-games with no-nonsense virtue, this newest BMW also reflects another traditional American article of faith—our unshakable belief that we can find and marry a pretty girl who will expertly cook, scrub floors, change diapers, keep the books, and still be the greatest thing since the San Francisco Earthquake in bed. It's a dream to which we cling eternally, in spite of the fact that nobody can recall it ever having come true. But, as if to erase our doubts, along comes an inexpensive little machine from Bavaria that really can perform the automotive equivalent of all those diverse domestic and erotic responsibilities, and hope springs anew.

I'll be interested to see who those 10,000 owners of the 1968 BMW 2002 actually turn out to be. The twits won't buy it, because it's too sensible, too comfortable, too easy to live with. The kids won't buy it because it doesn't look like something on its way to a soft moon-landing and it doesn't have three-billion horsepower. BMW buyers will—I suspect—have to be pretty well-adjusted enthusiasts who want a good car, people with the sense of humor to enjoy its giant-killing performance and the taste to appreciate its mechanical excellence.

They will not be the kind who buy invisible middle-of-the-line 4-door sedans because that's what their friends and neighbors buy, nor will they be those pitiful men/boys who buy cars and use them as falsies for fleshing out baggy jockstraps. Good horses don't like bad riders, and it's doubtful if the 2002 will attract too many of the timid or confused fantasy-buyers. It's too real.

That last phrase is kind of a key to the whole BMW bag. It is too real. For a couple of years now, "unreal" has been a big word with the semi-literate savages of hot rodding. It's supposed to be a high compliment, but it turns out to be an unwittingly incisive comment on the whole metalflake-angel hair-Batmobile scene. LSD is a drag, not a drug, for that group. Gurus like George Barris and Ed Roth were blowing their minds on fiberglass and tuck-and-roll upholstery while the Indians still thought peyote nuts were something you put on chocolate sundaes.

Let me tell you there's nothing unreal about the 2002. Give it a coat of pearlescent orange paint and surround the pedals with lavender angel hair and it would just naturally die of shame. Like a good sheep dog, it is ill-suited for show competition, only becoming beautiful when it's doing its job. It is a devoted servant of man, delighted with its lot in life, asking only that it be treated with the respect it deserves. You can't knock that . . .

The Germans have a word for it. The German paper Auto Bild called the 2002 Flüstern Bombe which means "Whispering Bomb," and you should bear in mind that the German press speaks of bombs, whispering and otherwise, with unique authority. They, too, saw something American in the car's design concept, but only insofar as BMW had elected to stuff a larger, smoother engine into their smallest vehicle.

But that's really pure BMW, when you think about it. The current 2000 series started life in 1962 as a 1500, then it became an 1800 and finally a full two liters—going from 94 to 114 horsepower in the process. The current 1600 was introduced about a year-and-a-half ago, and BMW-ophiles everywhere began to think of that glorious day in the future when the factory would decide to put in the 2-liter engine. Well, sports fans, the glorious day has arrived, and the resulting automobile is everything the faithful could have been hoping for.

The engine cranks out 114 hp at 5800 rpm, and the way it's geared it just seems to wind forever—it'll actually turn 60 mph in second, and an easy 80 mph in third. Top speed (which doubles as cruising speed) is a shade over a hundred, and nothing in the chassis, running gear, or engine ever gives the impression that it's being worked too hard. It's like effortless, no kidding. It couldn't come down the side of a mountain any more gracefully if Gower Champion choreographed the whole trip.

Maybe the neatest part of the whole deal is the fact that the 2002 was originally proposed as a kind of second-choice, American anti-smog version of the wailing 1600 TI they were selling in Germany, but the second-choice version turns out to be better than the original. The 2002 is faster 0-60, and faster at the top end as well. Not to mention the fact that it's a whole lot smoother and quieter.

How they can do all that good stuff and then screw it up with one of those incredible Blaupunkt radios is a little hard to imagine, but that's what they did. The rule with Blaupunkt and Becker seems to be, "The Bigger and More Complicated and Expensive Our Radios Are, The Lousier The Reception." The 2002 had a lovely-looking AM/FM affair neatly slipped into its console—easily a hundred-and-fifty bucks worth of radio—and I couldn't pick up a Manhattan station from the far end of the Brooklyn Bridge. Honestly. It was maybe the dumbest radio anybody ever stuck in an automobile, like all Blaupunkt and Becker radios, yet the German car makers—for reasons unknown—continue to use them.

It's a great mystery. Motorola, Bendix, Delco, and Philco can all sell you foolproof, first-class radios for about 75 bones—the Japanese can knock one off for about 98 cents—but the best German car radio you can buy throws up its hands in despair if you expect it to pull in a station more than three-quarters of a mile away.

Fortunately, the BMW is fast enough that you can keep picking up new stations as the old ones fade away. What you really want to do in this case, though, is install a good domestic stereo tape system. Maybe a little kitchen, too. The car is nice enough that you'll probably want to spend an occasional weekend in it—especially when you're fighting with your wife, or there's nothing good on television.

A final word of advice. The crazy-mad little BMW 2002 is every bit as good as I say it is—maybe better. If the 1600 was the best $2500 sedan C/D ever tested, the 2002 is most certainly the best $2850 sedan in the whole cotton-picking world. Besides the model-number was increased by 25%, but the price increase for the larger engine only amounted to 14%, and if that ain't a fair deal . . .

Feel free to test-drive one, but please don't tell any of those ten million squares who are planning to buy something else. They deserve whatever they get. Now turn your hymnals to Number 2002 and we'll sing two choruses of Whispering Bomb . . .