WILD CARD: BMW E23 7 SERIES
A BBS rear HeckSpoiler complements a BBS non-foglight front spoiler metal than it did in the photos, perhaps the first time this has happened in the history of looking at blurry camera-phone photos of cars on the internet. The car didn’t run, thanks to a duff fuel pump, and the boot wouldn’t open (“The seller claimed it was frozen shut”). But a deal was struck there and then, and John trailered it home. It turned out that the car had been supplied new to Consul General of Turkey back in 1981, and he’d used it to waft around central London, presumably looking the very image of early ’80s success. Evidently besotted with his 735i, the Turkish top brass had it shipped across the Atlantic to Montreal, where he’d opted to retire, before moving to the US some years later. He entrusted care and maintenance of the car to a local mechanic, the same individual that subsequently bought the car and sold it to John. This explains why this desirable spec BMW came to be, and also why it escaped the massive bumpers found on all its siblings. It also means that John is only its third owner from new. Back to the story at hand then, and John’s evident good fortune showed no sign of stopping. He managed to get the boot open once he arrived back home, only to find a cache of classic aircooled Porsche parts lurking inside, including a rare Porsche 356 steering wheel he subsequently sold for $800! Some minor tinkering with the 735i’s fuel system soon had the straight-six beast running perfectly once more, proving that John’s spur of the moment trek to check out the car in the first place was more than justified. “The car actually stayed stock for a long time, over a year in fact,” recalls John. “I was enjoying driving it in standard condition and loving its plush spec. So it wasn’t until a friend of mine, Frank Gatto, asked me to come along to Simply Clean in Florida that I really got to work.” Two things you should know about Simply Clean: it’s a full 30 hours away from John’s home (us Brits really can’t comprehend the scale of the US), and that it was a mere four weeks away when John opted to go. It was very much game on. Meaning pretty much everything you see on the car now was achieved inside of a month. It should be noted that John is anything but green when it comes to old BMWs and classic cars in general. He owns an achingly cool Chevy Corvair on air (try saying that after a few shandies), and once had a US-spec E23, albeit one in far more suspect condition than this one. “My original plan for that car was to lower it and fit as many BBS styling parts as possible. But I never got around to it, for various reasons. I’m glad I didn’t though, as this car made a far better base
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That eye for detail can be seen all over
for this kind of treatment. Not least because it was vaguely sporting, was in brilliant condition and even had a manual gearbox.” Of course finding the BBS non-foglight front spoiler and BBS rear HeckSpoiler that now adorn the 7 Series was anything but easy. For the former, he had to call on the help of some UK-based friends, including Bruce Holder, a man with a similar penchant for deeply cool retro metal. It fell to Bruce to collect said BBS front end from the other side of England, then look into shipping it to the US. The price? A cool $1000. Enough to make John look at alternative methods. He ultimately had a friend, Ben Russell bring it back in his hand luggage the next time he was over, in the process saving close to $930. These additions might have transformed the appearance of the car, but they asked more questions than they answered, namely, which wheels to go for? BBS would have been the obvious answer and they were indeed under consideration, until John chanced upon the Ronal-built AC Schnitzer Type 2 wheels now housed within the 735i arches. “I bought them from a friend in California, but they were in bad shape at the time. Someone had spraypainted them black very badly, so getting them back to this condition took a lot of time. But they’re real collector’s wheels and incredibly rare, so it was more than worth it.” John’s keen eye for detail is evident throughout this car, but no more so than in the Air Lift suspension. John’s at pains to point out that Air Lift couldn’t have been more helpful and that the universal ‘Builder’ bags and struts now on the car were relatively
Fast Car Magazine #389
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