The BMW 2002 was the first ever true sports sedan. It was a two door with a back seat that was large enough for two adults. It was light, fast and agile. My first one was a 1970 white
2002. I bought it used with cash from the sale of the above 1969 Corvette, which I am sure was bought by a drug dealer. Who else goes around with $3000 in cash?
This BMW was very
quick and tight, and I was very happy with it, however, not to long after buying it a guy in a Buick ran into me when I was stopped to make a left turn off of De Anza Blvd near where Apple is today. De Anza was two lanes in each direction with no center
divider. This guy didn’t even hit the brakes, just ran into my rear at 40 MPH. This rocketed me across the center of the road where I was hit head on by another car, this one somewhat smaller than the Buick. After everyone stopped
I got out of my car to find that what had basically been a three box car – passenger compartment, engine compartment, and trunk was now a one box car. But the seats and headrest held me in place without collapsing, the engine and transmission were
pushed off their mounts and under the car, and basically I was completely unhurt. Even back then BMW was building very safe cars.
So I bought another 2002. This one, however was
not a good car. I bought it quickly without doing a decent inspection when even a cursory inspection would have revealed that it had been in a major accident and put back together badly. Fortunately, right after buying and selling it, I found a
used 1972 2002 tii.
The tii was an upgrade of the 2002. It had better suspension, bigger wheels and tires and brakes, and most importantly was fuel injected. The two liter engine
was rated at 130HP, which might not sound like much but the entire car only weighed 2200 pounds. It was quite fast and very agile. Here is a You Tube video of a silver one, which is exactly like mine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_nJgj-ayno. I owned this car for quite a few years. It was our family car, and served
us very nicely as long as the kids stayed small. That didn’t happen. After teaching two of the boys how to drive in it, and having to replace the transmission as a result, I sold it. I
am still amazed that even though the boys were whizzes at video games requiring the eye hand coordination of a cat, they were so bad at working an accelerator, clutch and gearshift lever at the same time.