|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Elvis, we are here
(BMW to market roadster like the one Elvis Presley drove in
Germany)
Esquire, Feb 1995 v123 n2 p134(1)
Author: Patton, Phil
DER ELVISWAGEN, the press called it--the white BMW 507 sports car in which Pfc. Elvis Presley tooled about Germany in the late 1950s, commuting between nightspots and the house at Goethestrasse 14 in Bad Nauheim, where he had ensconced his entourage. BMW tried to find that car, which Elvis left behind when he returned home; the carmaker dreamed of installing it in the Zentrum, the company theme park and museum that will soon open outside its new factory in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Last fall, that factory, BMW's first in the United States, began turning out 3-series Beamers, and soon its lines will produce an Elviswagen for the 1990s: BMW's mystery car, a roadster.
Inspired by the 507, the roadster will be the first model to be built entirely in the U. S. A. But it is also a symbol of the Americanization of the company itself: "Elvis, we are here," executives announced triumphantly at last spring's New York auto show. Americanization has gone so far that an American--Chris Bangle, a graduate of Pasadena's Art Center College--now heads up the design department. The company has introduced standout new models shaped expressly for the American market, such as the agile M3, a $35,000 high-performance sports sedan. In the last two years, BMW has seen its U. S. market share expand by more than half, more than any other luxury-car maker save Mazda, with its new Millenia. And it can now claim the best resale values of any marque.
There is anticipation of even more excitement over the roadster, which will go on sale next year. Prototypes are already running around the Schwarzwald. Its shape, as revealed by spies (above), is an homage to the Elviswagen, picking up on the gill-like fender vents of the 507. The car is built on the 3-series platform, and the first models will be powered by a 1.8-liter four, with a 2.8-liter six a possible future option. The price is expected to be about $24,000.
BMW has played up the mystery of the mystery car for all it's worth. It plans to export the car and hopes it will sell considerably better than the original Elviswagen. Introduced with great fanfare at the 1955 Paris auto show, the 507 never quite lived up to its billing. At nearly nine thousand Eisenhower-era dollars ($48,500 today), the car was expensive, and in the end BMW sold only 253 of them. When Elvis went home, he returned to Cadillacs--but that was before there was a BMW 7 series to consider.
The latest version of these flagship cars--the $57,900 BMW 740i, contender for the title of finest production sedan in the world--is in showrooms now.
"It's primarily designed for the U. S.," says Victor Doolan, president of BMW North America, "with the very American V-8 and a less austere interior." That interior includes such features as dual temperature controls for driver and passenger, an automatic-recirculation feature that senses the diesel bus in front of you and closes vents accordingly, and a 440-watt, fourteen-speaker stereo system, ideal for pumping out, say, "Viva Las Vegas" as you discover that the 740i can take rural curves comfortably at exactly twice the posted speed.
Inside are all sorts of new amenities of the kind we Americans like--self-dimming rearview mirror, fourteen-way seats, and a world-class innovation: an adaptive automatic transmission that senses the way you drive and varies the shifting pattern accordingly. Another concession to U. S. drivers is the presence of long-disdained cup holders--but not just ordinary ones: These are fronted with burled walnut and lack only Big Gulp compatibility.
But the new 7's drive with traditional BMW emotion. The Bavarian culture from which BMW springs is very different from the cool precision of neighboring Swabia, home of Daimler-Benz. Munich may have more in common, strangely, with South Carolina than with Stuttgart. It's funny how happy the Germans have found themselves in South Carolina, where I-85 has been renamed the Autobahn, and Spartanburg's best restaurant is Gerhard's Cafe.
To be sure, the South Carolina plant is BMW's hedge against the sort of currency fluctuations that have hurt the Japanese, and a source of less expensive, less unionized labor than Germany's. "We look at it as our Mexico," one BMW executive let slip when the plant was first announced. But the Spartanburg facility may lower prices for Americans, too. Should BMW manufacture its 318ti hatchback here, as has been speculated, it would likely sell for less than $20,000.
All Chris Bangle will say about the roadster is, "It will be a BMW." This delphic pronouncement means that the car will stick resolutely to rear-wheel drive, in keeping with the company's resistance to the vagaries of torquesteering produced by front-wheelers. The 138 horses of the four-cylinder engine will make the smaller roadster peppier than the 318ti's, which it also powers. The car aims, like the Miata, to restore the fun of old-time sports cars, so it will likely be given a dose of the M3's sportiness and some of the civility of the 7 series.
If you can't wait for the roadster or can't forget about the Elviswagen, the Herrington catalog offers a scale model of the old 507 in red or green for just $39.95.