It was described as the largest automotive check of all time. However you rank “Contact your hymns in 2002” By David E. Davis Jr., the automotive world changed in the USA and catapulted BMW from North America into the spotlight. It was so revealing that it even led to Davis released.
But we’ll get right away.
The year was in 1968 and the car Davis did not test the crazy turbo or even the Tii. These models were removed for years. This was simply the basic model 2002, which may be the way it was all the more revolutionary for Davis and a whole generation of automotive enthusiasts.
A year earlier, the BMWS magazine had 1600-2 “The best $ 2,500 limousines Car and driver ever tested. “With the larger and more powerful 2.0-liter engine, in 2002, as Davis wrote, this was” the best $ 2,850 limousine in the entire cotton world world. “
This headlight finally converted one of the darkest automobile brands that were imported into a well -known name in the USA. At the time of publication, however, things for BMW from North America (BMWNA) were very different. BMW had not officially exported its cars to the USA before World War II, and only a few were imported by private customers. During the profession, American service members discovered sporty BMWs like the 328 and 327, but they did not bring enough of these cars home to achieve a great influence. The product strategy of the BMW products after the war increased the visibility of the brand in the 1950s neither nor the disruptive sales system. While the Fadex Corporation from Fred Oppenheimer was successful with the Isetta microcar at short notice, Max Hoffman was not able to find an audience for BMWS V8 drive 507 or other models for the American car buyer. The new class sedans of the early 1960s and 2000 CS Coupé also missed the brand. By 1966, BMW had only sold 1,253 cars in the United States.
All of this changed with the start of type 114 (as it was known internally). Thanks partly to Car and driverThe glowing evaluation of the 1600-2 company, the US sales of BMW, almost quadrupled in 1967 and reached a total of 4,564 cars. Interestingly, almost all 1600-2S, not the larger, more practical four-door models.
Nevertheless, BMW remained a bit of an enthusiastic secret. With the April 1968 edition of Car and driverThat started to change. As one of the “big three” automotive publications together with Street & track And Engine trendPresent Car and driver Had around a million subscribers and incredible power to influence readers, many of which were probably the phenomenon of the great American muscle car.
But it was not just the quality of Davis’ knowledge that made the evaluation legendary. It was the way his prose transported readers at a time, place and a state of mind.
To give them an idea of the power of this review: It was this piece that ultimately triggered a basic movement that led to my father bought a purchase of a 2002 in the early 1970s. This car again gave me the BMW error when I was a little boy in the early 1980s. I can only imagine that countless readers have similar stories. But enough about it – let yourself be immersed in the evaluation. Here are a few extracts that you can assess yourself:
While I’m sitting here, fresh from the elegant hug of BMW’s new 2002 from 2002, I remember that something between nine and ten million Americans will make a terrible mistake this year.
As far as it affects me, hell with all of them. If you are satisfied to stay in the vehicle darkness, leave them. I know the BMW 2002, and I suspect that enthusiasts will buy as many as these Bayergayers want to build and send here in their leather pants and mountain climbing shoes. Something between nine and ten million squares, this pretty little 2-door limousine with all Cojones and Brio and vigor will be given twice as large and four times the price. The majority lose once.
Press the clutch. Simply. As if there was no spring. Snick. First gear. Remove the weight of the left foot from the clutch. Place your right foot on accelerator. The moment it begins, they know that Fangio and Moss and Moss and Tony Brooks and all these other big racing tunnels only retired just because they feared that one day they would have one of them, and if this day Came, they would be indomitable. You were right. They are indomitable.
David e Davis
As for David E. Davis Jr., “Contact your hymns in 2002” Coloned his reputation as one of the best and most influential automotive journalists in America. Ironically, it also fired it Car and driverThanks to his complaint that the radio from 2002 was made by that – Car and driver Advertiser Blaupunkt – “could not collect a Manhattan station from the other end of the Brooklyn Bridge.”
Then he accepted a job at the Campbell-Ewald advertising agency before returning to Car and driver 1976 this time as editor -in -chief. In this role he wrote even cheaper reviews of BMW automobiles and moved Car and driver New York City headquarters to Ann Arbor, Michigan. There Davis applied for the city to number the new office building of the magazine as Hogback Road from 2002 – overall from the sequence on the road network, but a suitable homage to the car that made his career and BMW relied on the radar of sophisticated American enthusiasts.
You can read the entire original rating here. And for a complete retrospective to David E. Davis (who died in 2011) they go to Car & Driver.
BMW 2002 photo gallery
