Wilkommen to all at T87’s Great Bundesrepublikan Four-door Fest, all week long on CC. We’ll play this one in chronological order and kick off with the ‘60s, the decade of BMW’s rebirth, with the hottest of the first wave Neue Klasse. Driving gloves are recommended to read this post.
It’s uncanny how closely these early Neue Klasse resemble the -02s from a distance. Even from a pretty close distance. There are quite a few around town, so I figured this might be one of them. Besides, I can’t say I’ve seen an early Neue Klasse up close in many, many years. Then I noticed the headlights are a smidgen more in-board than they should be. And there’s the small matter of the extra pair of doors at the back…
When the 1800 came out in September 1963, it didn’t come alone. It was accompanied by a super-spicy TI version, courtesy of the good folks at Alpina, who had done wonders for some early adopter of the 1500. It took a little while for the TI to reach dealerships, but they got there and did not stay on the forecourt for very long.
The focus was on the engine, of course. Not the standard 1800 lacked guts, but at 90hp (DIN), the OHC 4-cyl. could still use a few extra horses. A twin Solex carb setup and a boost in the compression ratio yielded an extra 20hp – now the game was afoot. A limited run of an even hotter Weber-carburated, 5-speed, 130hp TI/SA variant was available for MY 1965, though these were more for track and hill-climb use than regular civilian use. Some of the Alpina mods seen on the TI/SA could be adapted to a TI, if one had the means.
Yet for all this extra power, all BMW did to the exterior was to slap a “TI” badge on the rear end. Didn’t even bother giving it a twin exhaust or something to adorn those high flanks… I’m all for discretion and Q-ships and all that, but methinks this Bavarian doth underplay it too much.
Not that it seemed to matter: the 1800 became the Neue Klasse’s number one seller in its home market, completely eclipsing the 1500 and the short-lived 1600, with or without (mostly without) the TI badge on its behind. The squary/squinty-eyed 2000 elbowed its way to the top-of-the-range spot starting in 1966, causing the death of the 1800 TI. The standard-issue 1800 carried on regardless, making it all the way to 1971 with very minor changes.
The car’s very ‘60s feel is far more starkly evident inside. Compared to the somewhat drab and very dark interiors of the later -02s that I usually see in these parts, this fantastic display of chrome, maroon vinyl and plastiwood is almost deliriously extravagant (for a BMW).
Nice amount of room at the back, both for legs and heads, not to mention all the bits in between. Hey, this is a family car after all. It wasn’t the only one to exist in this segment, either. Families, it turns out, were a thing in those days too. Back in the tail end of the Baby Boom — who’d have thunk it?
And folks who had a little extra income might well be tempted by a saloon with better appointments (and/or a sportier demeanour) than the average 4/5 seater. Should we take a gander at the BMW’s opposition?
This is a skewed table, because we’re seeing the BMW within an odd context – the British market, which was then rife with tariffs to ward off those nasty Continentals (and I’m not talking about Lincolns). But still, the 1800 TI shines. And according to all sources I’ve perused, the level of build quality put it head and shoulder above all the rest, save perhaps the Benz and the Volvo, neither of which had the BMW’s amazing engine. The Alfa and the Lotus Cortina are far closer to the Bavarian Wunderwagen in this respect – before rust and other maladies take their toll, anyway.
In the West German market of the mid-‘60s though, the BMW was hard to beat. Over there, it was cheaper than the fuel-injected Peugeot 404 or the futuristic Rover 2000. It also had to contend with the Glas 1700 – probably its closest rival. But those weren’t imported in the UK, so… And BMW bought Glas in 1966 anyway. Problem solved.
Amazingly enough, this is a Japanese market car. There was a (tiny) crowd of well-heeled connoisseurs here back then. Like we’ve seen on a couple of ‘60s cars (such as this Cadillac), the importer (I’m guessing it’s them, though I have zero evidence for this), in his infinite wisdom, chose to keep the standard left-door-mounted rearview mirror as was, but pair it with a fender-mounted colleague on the right side. Quirky.
BMW produced over 135k units of the 1800 from late 1963 to 1971, plus about 18,000 of the TI version, whose lifespan in the range was a lot shorter.
Some people on the Internets wax lyrical about the 1800 TI, calling it “the original M car.” The TI/SA might be called that, but that’s still a stretch. Far more prosaically (and logically), the 1800 TI is the first of a long line of sporty BMW saloons – including the -02 T-with-a-small-“i”-(and/or-with-a-double-“i”), as well as their non-Ti-badged successors – that came in the groundbreaking Neue Klasse’s wake. But that’s not the whole picture.
The BMW 1800 TI is not the M’s ancestor or the Ur-Alpina, it’s much more than that. In its mid-‘60s context, it was a distillation of BMW’s newfound confidence in their automobile branch, after having lost Eisenach in 1945 and botched up their postwar range with overambitious V8s and almost gone under. It’s also a potent symbol of postwar West Germany’s Wirtschaftswunder, which by this point was plain for all to see. Nice to see one of these migrated to Japan, which was in the midst of its own Wirtschaftswunder at the time.
Related posts:
Curbside Classic: 1964 BMW 1800 Neue Klasse – The Car That Saved And Made BMW, by PN
Curbside Classic: 1964 BMW 1800 “New Class” – The Tesla Model S Of Its Time, by PN
Nice find, although I guess as you note they’re not so rare over there. Over here, these are exceedingly rare. Over the years, I’ve seen only a couple on the road compared to fairly regular sightings of 2002s
Jeff is correct, they are highly uncommon on the roads here, certainly in comparison to the 2002. However a good number of them seem to be kept in vintage racing circles, there were usually multiple excellent examples at the Monterey races, at least back in the late ’90s and 00’s and quite competitive.
BMW is recycling the Neue Klasse name for a new design direction that is starting to trickle out nowadays, I don’t think it’ll have the same impact as the original though but if it puts more attention on the original again then that works too. Everything once new is eventually old and then comes new again eventually…
BTW, you want an “r’ at the end of Süddeutsche, while Zeit might be feminine (die Zeit), it describes the Geist (der Geist) in this case and that’s masculine. “Süddeutscher Zeitgeist” And an “R” at the end always makes things sound more racy anyone so it’s correct there as well… 🙂
Thanks for the explanation, Jim.
I often get that wrong, too!
A car rarely seen in the US now, but they surely set the stage for BMW greatness here in the ’70s, a rebirth that was ironically stage managed by none other than Bob Lutz!
In ’68 the upmarket model Neue Sechs (New Six) E3 2500/2800 debuted and it was it’s quad headlight look that came to define BMW styling for decades. More handsome and a fitting upscale evolution of the Neue Klasse, it was a truly superb automobile for drivers.
With its’ smooth power and sporting chassis giving M-B a real run for the money for the enthusiast driver, R&T raved about them, and their review convinced me to buy a few-year-used ’71 2800 with 4 speed manual in ’75 from a college prof in Baltimore. I absolutely fell in live with it was a wonderful drivers car. However the a/c sucked, it was fragile, warped 2 heads in the 3 yrs I had it from overheating not, it was not made for HHH (hazy hot humid) Baltimore summers, and with many niggling problems, it also lost value like a rock. After putting up with its foibles for as long as I could stand, and with a new baby we needed a dependable family car, it was traded for a 38k low mile ’72 Buick Skylark 350-V8 4 dr sedan from Brooks Buick that in 5 years never let me down. Lesson learned!
The US version of 1967 2000 Ti sedan was the first to have the quad headlight treatment, as the European rectangular units were not legal.
I think that may be one case where the quad rounds actually look better than the originals.
True. I don’t believe I ever saw one in the US in the 10 years after it was introduced. The 2500/2800/Bavaria version integrated them much more attractively imo, perhaps because they were designed to have quads right from the start, and their overall styling, again imo, was much more elegant. The 530i was a very attractive evolution, my dream car at the time. Still love those too, still have the brochure.
I will add that I loved driving this car so much, as much as any true sports car I ever had, and if copious space and $ were available I’d love to add a prisitine one to the garage. The beautiful coupes are insanely high but the sedans are still not too bad, it’s truly a timeless look in a fabulous driving car, that is IF a rust free one could be found… not an easy task!
Methinks one’d need gloves to touch one of these – why, even the name, Ti, is all spiky – let alone drive it. In fact, the charmful interior is the kindest part (the later ’02 black ones being, as you say, drab), and could be fondled gloves-off.
Are these things beautiful? (A question about which I’ve always tipped left and right on the original Corvair itself). Probably not: too tall for all those hard folds, that need to be on a considerably lower machine (and I’m thinking, inter alia, about you, Hillman Imp). And in proof, every later iteration of this language on BM’s softened it all. I’d settle for “elegantly severe”.
In some fantasy, I’d love to drive one of these, then leap straight into an injected DeLuxe Pug 404, with leather and sunroof. The Frenchie is no great looker itself (to me), but I know the driving is quite something, and with the seating, ride and steering likely to be superior, that great extra oomph from the Kugelfischer set-up would give the Ti a good run. Of course, they may have sold 2.8 mill of them over 15 years, but BM has gone on to sell lord-knows how many multiples of that in variations of their New Class design since, and indeed, the latest electric 3-series proposal is without question a beautiful car.
One thing’s a sure thing: I’m sure the secretive, uber-rich Quandt family think this Ti is one of the most gorgeous objects on earth.
I’m pretty sure that is real wood veneer on the dash.
In Germany and Austria, the Alfa was the only significant real competitor to the Ti versions. Especially in Austria, the Alfas were quite common when I was the in 1969.
It was real wood in my E3, so I’d think it was as well in the 1800.
I don’t know the story myself, but I’m sure that there’s something involving Max Hoffman(n) so far as why we saw so few of the Neue Klasse cars here in the US.
T87, I see what you did there, alluding to the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Very, very rare on the streets of Melbourne when new. I remember seeing them listed in the back of Modern Motor, and was always taken by the model designators. Ti, SA – who could guess what they stood for? Key a burgeoning interest in foreign languages; I heard enough of them about the place. And an interest in my maternal German. I became reasonably fluent in Car, but that’s about it. I have a smattering of several languages, but not enough to hold a conversation in any. Sometimes even English is a struggle nowadays, needed words or phrases hovering tantalisingly out of reach.
Back to happier things. What a sighting! It would be decades since I have seen one, certainly last century. There are too many horizontal folds on the sides for my liking, accentuating the height of the body above the wheels, not a good thing. But it certainly looked like nothing else on the road at the time. And drove like nothing else too, I gather.
One of my cousins in Germany had this car in white. While visiting them in 1970 we took a ride down to Mannheim with 5 people, 3 adults and 2 kids. I recall the silky smooth sound from the engine and the tight structure feeling. I was in the back seat and oh boy the suspension travel was very short which made for a thumping ride over bumps…a bit harsh. My other cousin had a later 2800 4 door which I thought was really sexy. A ride in the rear had the same short suspension travel as mentioned before. I thought to myself that all BMWs ride like this. Oh, but that straight six was sublime…like a swiss watch!
Yes, they really did create BMW’s reputation out of almost nowhere.
A fascinating, long gestation period, a company that was almost nixed due to an accounting “error” and then saved at the last minute by Quandt. Apparently, he insisted on the boaty front instead of the proposed Michelotti one!
Of course, the collapse of Borgward left the perfect space for a thoroughly modern replacement!
I had a toy one of these that if you put pressure on the side of the car as you moved it (and it had a battery installed) then the indicator on that side of the car would illuminate
In contrast to the 2500/2800 series (known as “Bavaria”), the so called “Neue Klasse” didn’t age well in my eyes.
In the US they became known as Bavaria by 1971/2 when the bigger engine was added to the lower model with it’s slightly lesser features and luxury and priced competitively. It was a stroke of genius that boosted sales of the E3s immediately. My ’71 2800 I think was the last year for that model in the US.
I wonder why these didn’t have quad headlights. Our US spec 1970 2000 had 4 round headlights, although euro versions had a composite light. We also got a black interior relieved only by some wood trim.