Although the four cylinder BMW 2002 is the model that put the propeller logo on America’s consciousness, it was their legendary silky and powerful sixes that really came to define the company. BMW essentially built their brand on having the best engines, bar none. And this is where that long legacy started: the “New Six” (E3) 2500 and 2800, in 1969.
These cars got off to a somewhat slow start in the US due to their aggressive pricing, but came into their own as the Bavaria, which combined the bigger 2.8 and 3.0 L sixes with the 2500’s content/trim level. The 2500 was only sold for a few years here, and was always a rare sight, but this Road and Track review clearly identifies the E3’s many virtues, which where only enhanced within a few years.
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The title of this review is odd, given that only the 2500 was tested. It’s hard to grasp how compact and tidy these cars were. Its 106″ wheelbase is 4″ less than a current 3 Series, and their overall length is almost exactly the same. Yet these were the cars which with BMW pushed into the Mercedes-dominated luxury class. Its successor, the first & Series, did that more definitively, but the long-wheelbase 3.3L/Li were definite steps in that direction.
How I loved this page of technical specs in each R&T review. I once wanted to compile everyone ever printed, to make a superb easy-to-access file of every car’s technical specs. Maybe that’s still a good idea; anybody got a full collection of vintage Raod and Tracks?
This is more of a first impression than a typical full road test, but it captures the tremendously attractive qualities of the BMW New Six. Its engine, which hadn’t yet been called “turbine smooth”, was simply superior to anything else in its general price class, and made the Mercedes six look a bit geriatric.
A late E3 3.0Si has always been one of the most desirable cars of mine. There were two main sources for that lust: auto motor and sport raved about it endlessly, as if it was the second coming. Well, it was BMW second six, after their legendary pre-war sixes. According to them, no sedan engine had ever had such “bite” as the injected 3 liter six, in its non-smogged European form, and yet was so perfectly tractable, quiet and smooth. It was a car that BMW would only surpass with the M5, some years later.
And some friends of ours in LA had one no less, in this blueish-silver. It was an automatic, but how I drooled over that car. The owner admitted she was on very familiar terms with her German mechanic. BMW’s overheating tendencies were still not tamed, among other issues. The Germans probably had a hard time replicating sitting in traffic for hours in LA’s heat wit the air conditioning on. Not exactly how these cars were designed to be used.
“The Germans probably had a hard time replicating sitting in traffic for hours in LA’s heat wit the air conditioning on.”
If BMW engineers really believed driving conditions everywhere conformed to their advertising, they were pretty näive. Even European highway traffic jams (from I hear) can be so bad, folks bivouac until traffic starts moving, and So. California’s climate is about the same as in Mediterranean/Mideast markets (aside from the smog).
Diligent engineers are supposed to test worst-case usage; this is why Porsche rents Ford’s Arizona proving grounds, and Death Valley is a popular haunt of auto paparazzi. However, I do grant that maybe not all allow for the same engineering margin in their cooling/AC systems.
I should have said So Cal, including the inland desert areas. My point is that clearly in the early and mid 60s, when BMW engineered both the smaller four cylinder cars and these sixes, they didn’t get it right, cooling-wise, all all BMWs of these generations had notorious cooling issues.
Yes. I had a 74 Bavaria, automatic with A/C. To make it worse, the car never OVERheated, it would just “run kinda hot,” which encouraged you to put up with it — until you started cooking the valve train and the transmission.
These cars just couldn’t take heat. I knew of several horsie types who burnt their Bavarian masterpieces in a hot Okanogan summer. Going up the Coquihalla Highway circa 1990 produced a succession of fine European brands variously steamIng and sometimes even on fire. I actually saw a hippie van go up in flames on the long hill. Merritt was full of car repair places. No longer, thankfully.
I assume that BMW cars are better now that the 2500 featured. They are not easy cars to own and engines don’t last long.
Thanks for this. The E3 has always been a lust object of mine, too. It appeals to a certain “swiss army knife” sensibility, with its combination of sporting capability, comfort, and size. These might be my answer to the automotive “desert island” question. If you are limited to two cars for the rest of your life, the answer is probably one Ferrari/Lamborghini and one luxobarge of a brand to be determined. But if there’s only one car, make it an early 2800 in Sahara, or a 3.0si as pictured. With as big of a radiator and electric fan system as will fit. Oh, and there must be a sunroof (I don’t think I’ve seen an E3 without it). The favorable comments about ventilation in the article must reflect no attempts to use the air conditioner.
Very nice,a lot more attractive and interesting than the present jelly bean BMW.These cars were very expensive in the UK but in the end saw off the big 6 cylinder cars from our domestic manufacturers.
I had not read this before Paul and thanks for posting. It’s interesting they speak of the transmission’s notchiness compared with earlier BMW efforts. I always thought the change to whatever was used in the E3/E9s was what first gave BMWs their snick-snick reputation. I wonder if it changed again with the 5-series? Maybe press cars were not to spec.
Also the line about the vagueness of the power steering surprised me. European cars with PS have traditionally had lots of caster, it’s good for self centering the steering wheel after a turn and some feel it gives more road feel. I dialed it up in my Cadillac with the realignment and it helped. More caster adds more effort so maybe they were trying to make the PS really light? Do you have that technical side bar that they talked about? The PS in Mom’s 280SE was heavy but had plenty of feel.
Not to be a Mercedes apologist or anything but I always thought it was a bit misleading for Americans to read reviews of a Bimmer with M/T but of a facing Mercedes with A/T. Yes BMW should reap some rewards from offering the M/T but most Americans wanted A/T even in a German luxury car.
As I was telling you privately my folks almost bought one of these. When I read now about the problems with overheating and A/C performance I’m glad they didn’t as that could have soured them on European cars. Since Mom needed an A/T that would have been another buzzkill, they were really horrible in the early E3s. And she was coming out of a ’65 Sedan de Ville!
You can tell the article was written a long time ago… “Floods in California brought out the need the good ventilation and the 2500 didn’t let us down…”
Reviewer comments on shifter notchiness sometimes have to be taken with a grain of salt simply because there was often only one or two test cars for all the magazines. (Sometimes if you compare different magazines’ reviews of the same model, you can see from the license plate that they were all testing the exact same car.) So, even though the test cars were usually well prepared (occasionally to suspicious degree), one set of reviewers might get the car after it had been thrashed by everyone else. Coming off of days of attempted speed shifting and dragstrip testing, I’d be a little notchy, too…
Could the cooling issues be another reason why these early BMW sedans have mostly vanished, while Mercedes of the same era are still somewhat plentiful? The addition of thermal reactor emission controls several years later only made the situation worse.
I’ve never known anyone who has owned or driven a BMW 2500 or 2800, but I did know someone who had a 3.0S, known here in the USA as the Bavaria. Although it wasn’t in the best condition, it was still a nice looking car, and an awesome vehicle.
About the same time this car was made, my future boss was a service manager at a VW and BMW dealer in Baltimore. He would go back to Germany almost every year to tell the engineers what was breaking on their cars; he was native German and spoke the lingo. The glue used to assemble the interior trim was failing in the summer heat. Couldn’t happen was the answer, they tested the cars in N. Africa at 110 and it held. My boss said to test it at 95 and 100% humidity and see how that works. Of course it melted.
Somebody mentioned the thermal reactor; it was like an after burner in the exhaust manifold. Terrible fuel waster, it had to run rich to work. These cars had head gasket and cylinder cracking/warping issues from the normally undersized radiator plus the heat from the reactor. When they finally hung cat convertors, that’s when things got much better.
That story about the adhesive sounds incredible to me, it’s as if BMW used no climate-controlled test chambers for prototype assemblies, in which they could sweep over temperatures & relative humidities without driving all over the planet. Should’ve been a no-brainer, esp. since Germans traditionally have been world leaders in chemistry.
There’s lots of cribbing in the car biz, it’s too expensive to re-invent the wheel everywhere. They could’ve just looked up VW’s or Ford’s suppliers.
For me the amazing thing about the adhesive story is that high heat and humidity was still causing BMW interiors to fall apart when I gave up on them a decade ago. After the trim between the window seals, windshield and headliner fell off a two year old E46 coupe, the dealer told us the replacements would do the same and we were best off finding our own adhesive. We had similar issues with an E36 as well. That time it was the vinyl trim panels on the door cards.
Lovely cars, and a great read. Somehow, there is somthing about 60s/early 70s german prodicts that is iundefinabel but attractive, and it has been lost.
I was surprised to see that a 3 series has a wheelbase of 110″, but then the 7 aeries (this car’s nominal successor) has 126″.
+1 while today’s BMWs are excellent cars they lack something beside’s looks compared to the feature car
Thanks for the E3 love. Most days I drive to work in my ’71, because commuting in a vintage BMW really isn’t commuting. Aside from the Ralph Kramden steering wheel and airy cockpit, the car (even in stock form) has a surprisingly modern feel. Unlike the floppy, rusty E9 coupe, which lately has become an object of worship, the E3 has four-wheel disc brakes and a ‘b’ pillar for solid, predictable handing. It’s also thousands cheaper and won’t dissolve after a few rainstorms.
Long ago I addressed the cooling system issues with a newer cylinder head (larger water passages); a reworked radiator; improved fan clutch; and a nine-blade fan. Even in the summertime I can run the a/c without the engine coming close to overheating.
Even the last 3.0 CS, with “factory approved” A/C and an added on electric radiator cooling fan could not tolerate the Heat & Humidity that permeates New Orleans for most of the year.
After repeated overheating during daily Interstate 10’traffic jams and twice blowing head gaskets; the otherwise lively “Ultimate Driver’s Machine” had to go.
Paul, was this the same issue of R&T that also had tests of the Volvo 164 and MGC? Two other straight sixes that never really went anywhere, but had more appeal to my 12 year old self. Go figure.
“I once wanted to compile everyone ever printed, to make a superb easy-to-access file of every car’s technical specs”
http://brooklandsbooks.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&path=12_48&product_id=763
There you go, someone has made a start.
I suspect you already know of the Brooklands titles. I’ve amassed a pile and keep revisiting them as interests seem to cycle. Best to remember them when they were new. Way cheaper than ownership, too.
Note Road & Track said the BMW six had a “sporting exhaust note very much like that of the Pontiac six” GM was still “standard of the world” back in 1969.
Also “… the lip above it that extends into and along the body side is definitely Corvair in origin.” A point Mr. Niedermeyer has made in his Corvair post.
Well, the Corvair and the OHC Pontiac Sprint were among the very few American cars of that vintage to which Road & Track gave much time. At the time this issue was published, domestic cars were really the province of Car Life, then a product of the same publisher. Road & Track generally stuck to sports cars and imports — they’d occasionally look in on certain American cars that seemed unusually European in concept, but not every new car release like Car Life or Motor Trend.
The Pontiac OHC engine was a particular reference point not because they considered GM the standard of the world, but because Pontiac had made a big deal about the OHC six being a real European-style sports sedan engine. That naturally got all the buff books very interested and there was a spate of “is it or isn’t” articles. Also, it was a more affordable reference point, since you could get the OHC six in a Tempest or Firebird for about two-thirds the price of the BMW.
My MIL had a lovely 1975 3.0Si in root beer brown with tan leather. I used to love ripping around the back roads of Sonoma County farm country in it, even with its regretable 3-speed auto box. I still think that (along with the E-9 CSI) is one of BMW’s finest creations.
Around 15 years ago I was looking at a BMW 3.0 Si very similar to the last photo, a 4-speed manual. It seemed to be pretty good, but I was a bit wary of potential parts headaches and costs, so didn’t buy it. Didn’t buy anything actually (including a mint square tail light 2002), just kept driving the car I had.
In 1972, while working my way through college, I bought a used 1969 2500 without a/c or power steering. It was a 4 spd., with fairly low miles. I had owned several VWs , a triumph tr4 and one great Porsche 912 which I couldn’t really afford but managed to keep it for a couple of years and sell at a profit. I lived in Sacramento. not exactly a mild climate, and had no overheating issues. I sold it after about two years and later regretted that, as it was an exceptional car in so many ways. Two minor things that I did not like: one was a flat spot in the acceleration curve. I later learned that the best fix for this was Weber Carbs. The second annoyance was a slight vibration at 55 mph that the usual tire shop remedies could not cure. The previous owner had replace original tires with cheap radials. New Michelins would have worked. I have since owned 3 Mercedes and a saab, among others, all great cars, but still regret not keeping the 2500 longer. I now own my second BMW, a 2014 328D which is also a great car.
I bought a 2500 after I returned from Viet Nam. It was a year old and was repossessed from someone that put down one payment and then tried to hide the car in Manhattan, NY. They found it. I drove it for 10 years which included time trials at the track and club racing. It was way underpowered and I had to push the limits constantly. Good brakes allowed me to brake very late and gain time lost on the longer straights. I could also hit the gas earlier coming out of a corner and move quickly through the esses. It was like a slingshot firing too big a rock. The engine finally showed signs of wearing out and the shock towers were rusting through. After 10 years and 139000 miles it was retired. I still mourn the loss.