BMW 2002 Turbo

1973. The oil crisis has just erupted, the whole world is queuing at the petrol station, and what does BMW do? Exactly. At the IAA in Frankfurt they unveil a car with TURBO written in mirror script across the front spoiler, so the driver ahead could read who was coming up in their rear-view mirror. That is how you politely but firmly persuade someone to move over to the right. Marketing of a calibre that today requires entire advertising agencies, and BMW pulled it off with a sticker.

The timing was, let us be honest, downright absurd. A 2002 with a KKK turbo at a moment when half of Europe wasn't even allowed to drive on a Sunday. The press slated it in public, and yet it is precisely that timing that makes this car a legend today. The first series-built turbocharged passenger car in Europe. A car so awkward, so contrary and so gloriously arrogant that it made itself immortal.

And to drive? Well. Anyone who has ever piloted an early turbo knows the phenomenon: below 4000 rpm very little happens, you almost think you have taken a wrong turn on the way to the corner shop. And then, somewhere around that 4000 mark, the KKK wakes up. BAMM. As if someone in the back has switched on a second engine. It wasn't called turbo lag back then, it was simply called "hold on tight".

The flared arches, the fat rubber underneath, the spartan interior with that three-spoke steering wheel: this is driving the way it was meant to be in the seventies. Raw, direct, without a single electronic safety net to keep you in line.

Right, back to the car standing here now. This 1974 BMW 2002 Turbo on offer wears the colour Polaris Metallic, a shade of silver that gives this car exactly that serious, technical aura a 2002 Turbo deserves. Under the bonnet sits the familiar 2.0 with its KKK bellows, good for 170 bhp. Manual gearbox, of course. Four-seater, leather upholstery, riding on a set of Vredestein 185/70 R15 summer tyres that let you drive it exactly as it should be driven.

This classic is over fifty years old and proudly bears the marks of its history. The left-hand side was resprayed in the past, but otherwise the car remains in a remarkably original condition. That is precisely what makes it so appealing: the right details, the right presence and above all that authentic character you only find in an original car. A classic to drive, not just to look at.

It is a car you buy because it opened the door at BMW through which the M division would later come storming. Without this stubborn, badly timed, mirror-lettered troublemaker, that whole saga would have looked rather different. Every M3 you hear howling around the Nürburgring today carries a little bit of 2002 Turbo DNA in its bloodline.

And there lies the catch. They are rare. Fewer than 1700 were ever built, and of those 1700 quite a few came to grief over the years thanks to people who didn't take the KKK seriously but took the corner very seriously indeed. What survives is cherished, passed on between enthusiasts and rarely let go of willingly. This one is right here. Now. Real enough to touch across our 6,000 square metres.

The 2002 Turbo is the car BMW should never have built and should never have stopped making. The press recoiled from it, the spirit of the age all but banned it, and that is exactly why we enthusiasts still love that little, wide, cheeky thing fifty years on.

Below 4000 rpm you still have your doubts. Above it you know exactly why you signed.

Special features

• First series-built turbocharged passenger car
• Built 1974, first registration May 1975
• Colour Polaris Metallic
• 2.0 engine with KKK turbo, 170 bhp
• Manual gearbox, real driving as intended
• Flared arches and the unmistakable Turbo silhouette
• Spartan, direct, without electronic safety nets
• Rare classic, fewer than 1700 built
• Direct forerunner of everything that would later be called M
• To be admired in the metal across 6,000 m²

With TURBO still in mirror script before my mind's eye

Nick Slinger

Copywriter · HooG Selections