Restored Touring FAQ Debut

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Well after almost two years in the restoration process my Touring is pretty much done. Some brief history of the car.

Car was originally delivered to Sweden in December of 1972. It spent its life there until 2005 when FAQer Dave Pineda imported it to Canada. Dave put it on eBay in September of 2006 and I snatched it up as soon as I saw it.

After the purchase my wife Etta and I drove up to Toronto and picked up the car from Dave, and towed it back to NC. Dave pointed me to the FAQ and sent my name to some touring folks, one of which was Mike Pugh in NC.

Little did I know that there is an extremely active group of 02ers in NC, and I quickly met up with many of them via the 02 Group headed by Scott Sturdy. The inaugural drive with the 02 Group was Mike Pugh's fruitcake and covered bridge drive. That was the cars first real drive in NC, and that is when I learned that the brakes were in need of some attention, and that the clutch was slipping.

So from that point I started to think of the what I was going to do with the car. 5 speed, new paint, rust repair. Well, that all led me to starting a full restoration of the car. I was introduced to a mechanic (Greg LaValle, Lavalle Import Restoration) in Greensboro, and enlisted him to get me started with the process. The body and paint work was done by the same shop that did Bill Williams' perfect touring (Romans 8:36). Since I only intend to do a restoration like this once I decided that I would do more of a resto-mod because I would like to do some things that were not stock, but period correct.

The first major change was to change the color. Sahara has its appeal, but I knew I wanted something different. I have always been a fan of green and when I saw a pic of an 02 in Taiga, I was sold. To go along with the uniqueness of the color, I also decided to do the interior a bit differently. The Touring came with the stock seats with fabric inserts. I went to a local shop and was looking for a houndstooth or herringbone fabric that had some green to compliment the exterior. I found a fabric that was similar to a herringbone, that matched extremely well, and had the interior guy do the seats and door panels in the fabric. I also had him sew pleats into the seats to make it look like it may have been stock. I am thrilled with the way they turned out.

During the body restoration it was determined that the front fenders, hood and nose needed to be replaced. All new BMW parts were ordered up and added to the car. Of course since this is a Touring certain things had to be sourced from Europe. Many parts were acquired, and I watched as my bank account was drawn down.

So here are the some of the non-stock items that were added to the car.

1. Cosmic Alloys

2. Ireland Engineering sway bars, stage 1 springs, and urethane bushings for the whole car.

3. 5 speed conversion kit from Dave Varco (Aardvarc)

4. 5 speed tranny from Rimspoke in NC

5. Lynx Manifold and Weber 45 (purchased from a FAQer)

6. Tii Exhaust manifiold (pruchased from a FAQer)

7. Momo Gritti wood steering wheel (I think from Armond)

8. Leather covered guage panel from Parker Performance with oil pressure, temp, and volt.

9. Power door locks

10. Alpine stereo, fiberglass kick panels for the speakers, and Pioneer speakers that fit under the rear seats

11. LED third brake light

12. Pertonix ignition, Tii mechanical distributor

13. Aux light bar from Jaymic with NOS Hella 160 amber fogs

14. 3.91 LSD

15. New Carpet kit from cabrio.de (thanks to Jaime Munoz)

16. New headliner (Thanks Bill Williams)

17. And some other stuff I forgot

Special thanks to the Touring owners who have assisted me in locating parts. Mike Pugh, Bill Williams, Jeffrey Kok, Les Cartwright, Sam Adams, and Jaime Munoz.

An additional thanks to Blunt for taking many of my paychecks to supply me with almost every single piece of chrome on the car, and many other Touring specific parts.

An additional special thanks to Greg LaValle as he has put untold and unbilled hours into getting the car back together and done right.

http://picasaweb.google.com/ascottbarnes/1973BMW2000Touring?authkey=YsXhsrrSCR0#

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[Guest Anonymous]

The wheels seems as though they came off of a late 99's integra. Nice touring anyhow.

[oz_tom]

The wheels seems as though they came off of a late 99's integra. Nice touring anyhow.

Cosmics are period correct...

[AndyS]

the Mechanic in question is Greg Lavalle. He built my Cabriolet, my supercharged 02 and my M2.

[ascottbar]

You are correct Andy. I thought I added that in there but I didn't. You can see the Lavalle Import Restoration license plate surround that I had made to match the car. He touched and refinished just about every part on this car. If it was not purchased new, he refinished it. Stuff like the trailing arms, gas tank, the wheels, etc... He did a great job on it.

[alp]

I would love to find a set of the Cosmic wheels for my 02. I just missed a set on ebay (out bid by someone).

[MikeinNC]

Guys, this color (Taiga) on this body style has to be one of the more awesome looking 02s I have seen. The car looks even shorter than other tourings with this color. And all of Scott's little touches like the interior scheme and carpet and wheels are really awesome and very period looking. We got to see the car in person and on the road this past Sat and I had a hard time leading the pack because I was looking in the mirror so much. It was a real treat to see Scott and Etta almost two years from when they first brought the car down

Scott and Etta 'at speed'

From the Covered Bridge drive two years ago, it sure has come a long way Scott!!

[HarryPR]

Congrats on a beautiful car, Scott! Looking forward to checking it out soon.

[tiitouring02]

Scott - its truly beautiful! I remeber a Taiga tii coming into my dad's dealership once about 20 years ago, and how pretty i thought that car was. You just dont see nice Taiga cars anymore, way to go! I look forward to seeing the car in person.

Cheers,

Martin