4290238

[Preyupy]

Originally delivered in England, 1st owner had a small accident in 1985, the radiator was damaged and he ran it out of water, over heating the engine and cracking the cylinder head.  He was unable to find a replacement head and the car was stored until 1996 when it was traded to a race car restoration shop owner as part of a deal on a vintage race car.  The small amount of body work was done to repair the chassis but the new owner was unable to find a cylinder head.  In 2001 the father of the new owner came by my shop and saw that I had a few M10 race engines in various stages of rebuilding and asked if I knew anything about 2002 Turbos?  When I heard the story of the car I informed him that a cylinder head was not even a minor problem and that I would be happy to help his son,  I would either build a head for him or give him the needed information to do it himself (they are a very serious restoration shop and more than capable of doing the work).  Then I asked if his son really wanted to keep the car or would he be interested in selling it as-is?  We were able to come to an agreement and I purchased the car from him.  In December 2001 I had the car imported into the US with the intention of just building an engine and having a turbo!  The car had 40,000 original miles on it and had not moved under it's own power in 16 years.  When it got here it sat for a number of years until I had time to work on it.  Once I got started I decided the repaint that was done back in the mid 90's was not very good.  There was virtually no rust on the chassis (we spent less than 10 hours doing rust repair) I decided to do a complete bare metal restoration,  MISSON CREEP had kicked in.  One problem with being in the vintage race car restoration business is finding the time to work on my own project.  I finally finished the car in July 2010. The interior is original except for the headliner and carpet.  Seats, Dash, Trim and gauges were in perfect condition and all I had to do was clean and reassemble. 

 

This car is a standard 4 speed, no sunroof, no radio, Chamonix.  I does still have the original block, crank, injection pump, transmission, differential, and wheels.  

 

In 2016 I was invited to show the car at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance as part of the 100 year anniversary of BMW where it was awarded 3rd place behind a 3.0CSL and a 507.    

[m6smitten]

Very nice Pre. Jaw drops.....

Are you running lowering springs? What dot rear spring pads?

[Preyupy]

H&R springs and HD Bilsteins.   I tried it with the stock springs and HD shocks and it was just too soft.  I'll have to look I can't remember which rear spring pad I wound up using to get the ride height I wanted,  I know I played around on the chassis scales a bit to get it balanced.