The 1966 2000C

I’m down with a case of Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV). Nasty bug. No fever or chills like the flu or COVID, but lots of congestion, a deep lung-y cough, and fatigue. Plus, it’s been the snowiest winter in 15 years in New England. So the cars and I haven’t done anything intimate together in weeks.

So you’re going to get the story of my 1966 2000C.

During the brief period Maire Anne and I lived in Austin in the early Eighties (1982 through mid-1984), I used to search for cars by just driving around our neighborhood of small houses down near the university and looking down people’s driveways. That’s how I saw my first 3.0CS E9 coupe. “What… is that?” I said to myself. Longer, lither, and lovelier than a 2002, I was immediately smitten. There were plenty of 2002s in the two to three thousand dollar range, but unfortunately, even back then, intact E9s were 10 grand. There was no easy path to an E9 for this guy.

But then I saw an ad for a car I didn’t know existed. Even though the E9 looks like it was a clean-sheet-of-paper design, it was anything but. Its predecessor was the 2000CS, the two-door coupe offshoot of the Neue Klasse four-door sedans that preceded the 2002. From the firewall on back, the body is identical to the E9, but because it shares an earlier version of the M10 four-cylinder engine with the 2002, its nose and hood are shorter than the E9 that had the six-cylinder M30. And instead of having removable grilles, the vent slats were cut into the bottom of the nose, and it has a very narrow set of kidneys. The cars had dual headlights behind long glass covers. The whole thing gave it a look somewhere between an electric razor and a praying mantis. The dual-carb 2000CS and its single-carb 2000C were never imported through Hoffman Motors, but small numbers of them came over through the gray market.

A 2000CS. Man those wheels are far inboard. (photo WikiMedia/Charles01)

In 1968, the body was changed to accommodate the M30 six-cylinder. The nose was lengthened and restyled, giving the car the E9 look that now makes it worth six figures, but the resulting 2800CS still had the rear drums from the 2000CS and a slightly inboard-looking rear track. It was when the 3.0CS was introduced in 1971 that the car got four-wheel discs and the stance we associate with the car today.

A 2800CS. You can see how the rear wheel track is still a little bit inboard by modern standards. (photo Bring a Trailer)

But a MUCH better-proportioned and lovelier nose (photo Bring a Trailer)

But back to the 2000C. In 1983 I read an ad for a single-carb 2000C being sold for the 2002-like price of $2500. It said it had a recently-swapped 2002 engine and transmission, but there were three big caveats.

The first was that the car barely ran. Having already cut my teeth on half a dozen 2002s, I wasn’t afraid of that. In fact, if it held the price down, good.

The second and much more serious issue was that the car had suffered a catastrophic failure of the right front wheel bearing, which ruined the stub axle that’s an integral part of the MacPherson front strut. I’d replaced front struts before, but this wasn’t the replaceable strut cartridge—it was the strut housing, a part that generally lasts the lifetime of the car. And, on this car, it was a part for a car that was never sold in this country.

The last issue was that the seller had no paperwork for the car. The story was that he had taken the car in barter for back rent from a tenant. I spoke with him and he said he knew the legal owner, was on good terms with her, and if I bought the car, he’d have her get a duplicate title and sign it over to me.

I was so smitten with the idea of owning this car that was 2/3 of an E9 that I ignored this big glaring flashing red light and bought it.

I already had a relationship with Austin’s BMW guru Terry Sayther. Terry had contacts in Germany. This was in the deep dark pre-Internet days, so letters had to be written and sent overseas, and you had to wait for a response. A used strut housing was located, and a check was mailed. I put the car up on jackstands in the carport of our little duplex at 101 West 35th St and removed the damaged strut, and waited for the replacement to arrive.

In the meantime, the car needed basic sorting. I solved the fuel delivery and ignition issues that were causing it to run badly, rebuilt the leaky rear wheel cylinders, and renewed all fluids. I also contacted the seller at regular intervals. He said that his former tenant had moved, but he had her contact information and was pressing forward on the title issue. (I can sometimes be an overly-trusting sap. In another lifetime, Bernie Madoff would’ve had my money.)

Finally, about six months later, the box with the strut housing in it arrived. I wasn’t able to disassemble the old strut assembly, so I brought the old and new strut assemblies to Terry Sayther to transfer the strut cartridge, spring, and bushing over to the new housing, installed it on the car, and mounted the hub and new wheel bearings, along with the rotor and caliper. Amazingly, I still have a folder of receipts for the car, and found this one.

I often marvel at what survives.

By the end of the weekend the car was moving under its own power. I was beyond thrilled.

The only photo I have of the now-mobile 2000C in Austin in 1984.

Except I couldn’t register it because I still didn’t have the title.

I called the seller and expressed my intense concern about the situation. He got testy. I got angry and exasperated and asked for the contact information of the previous owner so I could take the matter into my own hands. He hung up on me. I began leaving messages for him at his place of employment. He totally blew them off.

I had no title and a very big problem.

I asked around at work, and was told that what I needed to do was seek a hearing with the county tax assessor, as that was the office that had the power to grant me a title. I filled out the application, and waited the month for the appointment while the illegal 2000C sat in my driveway.

Again, in a world where I routinely lose my car keys, I marvel that I still have this.

At the appointed hour, I went into the tax assessor’s office with my notes and photos and paperwork. I was very aware that recent-Massachusetts-transplant-nervous-talking me was unlikely to have the good-old-boy rapport with the tax assessor that a native Texan would, but I really try to think the best of people unless I have reason to do otherwise, and to think that people in a position to help you usually want to help you.

When I was done pleading my case, he nodded slowly.

“You have this feller’s phone number?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well,” he smiled, “Why don’t we ring him up and hear his side of the story?”

I was horrified. I fully expected him and the seller to do some secret Texas over-the-telephone handshake and hang Yankee-boy me out to dry. All I could do was stay quiet and listen as the tax assessor summarized what I’d presented to him, then asked the seller to respond.

The seller claimed that he was helping me, but that I was impatient, and that if I just trusted him, he’d do what he said and get a title from his former tenant. The assessor asked the seller exactly what he was doing to contact the car’s legal owner, and the seller simply said that he was working on it.

The assessor thanked the seller for his time, and hung up. Then—and I’ll remember this for the rest of my life—he put his thumb and forefinger on his chin and thought for a few seconds. I could feel my fate hanging in the balance.

“Well,” he said, “That feller’s clearly a lyin’ sack of shit.” I was stunned.

Then with a slight flourish that seemed to poke fun at his position of power, he said “By the power vested in me by Travis Country, I hereby grant you clear title to your Bee Em Dubya” and stamped the paperwork.

Many of us have experienced frustration with people who treat their city or state jobs as fiefdoms over which they have absolute power. I’ve been on the wrong side of electrical and plumbing inspectors before. But this time, on this day, I’ve never been so glad for someone who could rule his office by fiat.

I didn’t have the 2000C long. In a few months, Maire Anne and I were on a glide path to return to Boston and get married, and we could only take two cars with us. Those were her 1969 VW Westfalia camper, and Bertha, my big-bumpered 1975 2002. I sold it to, if I remember correctly, the wife of Delbert McClinton’s bass player. It would be another two years before I bought the ratty barely-running cracked-in-the-nose partially-disassembled ’73 3.0CSi that I resurrected and still own. Even though the 2000C wasn’t technically an E9, I think of it as my starter E9, and credit it for setting me on my coupe-loving path.

My 3.0CSi began like this…

…and turned into this.

As E9 prices have skyrocketed, there seems to have been a bit of a surge of interest in the 2000CS the past 10 years, and the car seems to be doing exactly what it did for me those 42 years ago in Austin, providing a more-affordable vintage-BMW-coupe path for folks. Whenever I see one at a vintage BMW event, I’m rocketed back to the short time I owned and drove it, the jerk who sold it to me, and the country tax assessor who saved my Yankee bacon.

In addition to the car’s unique looks, it still reminds me to be very wary of title issues.

—Rob Siegel