Can one magazine article change the course of automotive history?
Though it’s hard to imagine in today’s fractured media landscape, that’s exactly what happened in April 1968, when Car and Driver published “Turn Your Hymnals to 2002,” an ecstatic review of a new BMW by contributing writer David E. Davis Jr.
“To my way of thinking, the 2002 is one of modern civilization’s all-time best ways to get somewhere sitting down,” Davis wrote.
“The minute it starts moving, you know that Fangio and Moss and Tony Brooks and all those other big racing studs retired only because they feared that someday you’d have one of these, and when that day came, you’d be indomitable. They were right. You are indomitable.”
Driving the unassuming little 2002, Davis blows away nearly everything else on the road, from a six-cylinder Mustang to a Pontiac GTO, while leaving British sports cars and even Porsches behind in the curves. “Grovel, Morgan. Slink home with your tail between your legs, MG-B. Hide in the garage when you see a BMW coming. If you have to race with something, pick a sick kid on an old bicycle.”
Even more surprising, BMW’s new two-door was not only sportier than the so-called sports cars but more practical, as well.
“The BMW 2002 may be the first car in history to successfully bridge the gap between the diametrically-opposed automotive requirements of the wildly romantic car nut, on one hand, and the hyperpragmatic people at Consumer Reports, on the other. Enthusiasts’ cars invariably come off second-best in a CU evaluation because such high-spirited steeds often tend to be all desire and no protein—more Magdalen than Mom,” Davis wrote.
Not so the 2002. “It rides like a dream. It has a surprising amount of room inside. It gets great gas mileage. It’s finished, inside and out, like a Mercedes-Benz, but it doesn’t cost very much. All those qualifications are designed to earn the BMW a permanent place in the Consumer Hall of Fame. But for the enthusiasts—at the same time, and without even stepping into a phone booth to change costume—it goes like bloody hell and handles like the original bear.”
A year earlier, the magazine had declared BMW’s 1600-2 “the best $2,500 sedan Car and Driver ever tested.” With the larger and more powerful 2.0-liter engine, the 2002 became, as Davis wrote, “most certainly the best $2,850 sedan in the whole… world.”
It was also one of the most obscure, especially in America. BMW hadn’t officially exported its cars to the US prior to World War II, and only a few were imported by private customers. During the Occupation, American service members discovered sporty BMWs like the 328 and 327, but they didn’t bring enough of these cars home to make much of an impact. BMW’s postwar product strategy didn’t increase the marque’s visibility during the 1950s, and neither did its disjointed distribution system.
While Fred Oppenheimer’s Fadex Corporation had short-term success with the Isetta microcar, Max Hoffman failed to find an audience for BMW’s V8-powered 507, or any of the other models aimed at the American car buyer. The early-’60s Neue Klasse sedan and 2000 CS coupe didn’t hit the mark, either. In 1966, BMW sold just 1,253 cars in the United States.
Follow along as we continue to celebrate BMW NA’s 50th Anniversary.
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