1971 BMW 2000

BMW has confirmed that the 2000 automatic saloon you see here was manufactured on the 2nd of June 1971 and delivered to Great Britain. Exported from there to South Africa (possibly in 1978/79 if the old rear numberplate is any clue…), its ultra-solid, rot-free condition is commensurate with a car that’s lived the majority of its life in a hot, salt-free country.

Originally finished in Bristol 058, essentially a glossy grey that predated Audi’s obsession with primer-coloured cars by several decades, it has been recently resprayed in black, a colour we think suits it very well. In need of some interior and mechanical recommissioning, this rare car is so unusual we’ve had real difficulties in finding comparator cars to value it against.

With this in mind, while we’ve set a guide price of somewhere between £6,000 and £9,000, it’s being offered with no reserve, so will sell from the very first bid. So, why not pop in a cheeky bid and see what happens? After all, the worst that can happen is you end up owning a conversation-piece car that you’re unlikely to see anywhere else.

The bodywork is, as you’d expect given where it’s spent most of its life, rust-free and largely straight. Sporting decent shutlines and good panels, the resprayed paintwork is in a good condition - and while the paint has been applied with an admirable degree of exuberance, we can’t help but think that if it were ours we’d pay a knowledgeable chap to machine polish it back to a better finish, something the straight blue paint would take very well. And anyway, having such fresh, thick paint to play with is a nice problem to have, isn’t it?

On a more original note, we’re especially impressed with the sills and wheelarches, both of which are notorious rust-traps and all of which seem to be solid and probably still factory metal.

The chromework is straight and is all still there but we can see the new owner might like to get it re-chromed at their leisure. Not that it is in a bad condition, which means it could easily wait until funds and motivation collide at a yet-to-be-determined point in the future.

The 14-inch steel wheels look straight and appear to have been freshly painted. Fitted with decent chrome wheel trims, more good news comes with the sight of four new matching tyres.

As we will never tire of explaining, our experience shows that matching tyres are an infallible sign of a caring and mechanically sympathetic owner who is prepared to spend the appropriate amount in maintaining their car properly. Their presence does not, of course, preclude the need for a thorough inspection - something the vendor would welcome, by the way – but it does perhaps give you a shortcut into their attitude towards maintenance.

Problems? Well, the respray has led to some overspray inside the engine bay, which is less than ideal. There’s also a scratch on the nearside wing (that might polish out), the glass is missing from the offside door mirror, and some of the light lenses are a little scratched and cracked.

The BMW’s interior is said to be the original, something its patinated condition tends to support. That’s not to damn with faint praise though because it really isn’t bad at all; hell, even the interior light still works and the dashboard has the sort of clarity we used to admire in our BMWs being as simple and straightforward as possible while simultaneously reeking of quality.

The blue vinyl seats, with their wonderfully over-engineered headrests, are in an acceptable condition. While the hot African sun has helped conserve the body, it does rather wreak havoc on interior trim and there are a few splits in the material as a result.

The carpets have seen better days too, as has the steering wheel but a car is only original once and at least the new owner can now choose which direction they want to take it in without having to accommodate a previous owner’s poor choices.

And there is an awful lot to like in there because the same heat that fended off rust for so long has also preserved things like the seat brackets, which are bright and fresh.

The door cards are remarkably well preserved too, as are the floorpans - and given that rust is always going to be Enemy Number One with cars of this era, its absence can only be a positive thing even if there are some minor trade-offs.

And they are minor because the priority jobs seem to be to replace the cracked dashboard top and then tighten a loose driver’s door handle. That’s not a bad To Do list, is it?

The engine bay is pretty good actually, being solid and fairly clean; obsessives will take great delight in tidying it up and making it prettier than it needs to be but the rest of us could live with it as it is without worry.

As we mentioned, there is some overspray under there but then there’s a new battery too, so very much a game of two halves.

Obviously, the underside is solid and free of crudeness and bodgery, although the exhaust does look like someone been at it with a rattle can of paint. The boot floor is solid too, and the whole underside is as reassuring as you could ever hope to see on a car of this age. We’d invest in some additional professional rust-proofing just to tip the odds further in our favour if it were ours but if it’s going to be a summer-only car then that too could wait.

Mechanical work to do is the usual recommissioning stuff, so you’ll need to set aside some time to fettle the wipers, the engine’s rough idle, and the bonnet catch.

That said, we can confirm that it starts, runs and stops well. It also passed an MOT with no advisories, so this relatively minor work, plus a decent service, should see you safely on the road with minimal effort and expense.

The BMW’s MOT certificate, which is valid until February 2022, was gained without a single advisory point.

As with so many imported vehicles, the paper trail is sparse and consists solely of the South African Certificate of Registration and a battered owner’s manual. There is also a HRMC NOVA certificate and MOT to allow the new owner to register the car in the UK.

Please visit the documents section of the gallery of this listing where you will find photos of this paperwork.

Valuing a car like this is hard, not least because so few come onto the market. Solid and free of the usual rust, rot and corrosion, its solid condition is counter-balanced by its patina and the need for some light recommissioning.

Not that it is a close-run thing because we think the absence of rust wins by a substantial margin; rust is where your fears should lie, and the fact you can dismiss it so easily means that you will be able to get on with enjoying your new classic car straightaway, both driving and lightly fettling it – and few jobs are as satisfying as adding value to something that already owes you less than you imagined would have been possible.

Because we think it will end up being inexplicably cheap, almost certainly because it is so unusual. How cheap? Well, while we think it might fetch £9,000 it wouldn’t surprise us if the virtual hammer falls as low as £6,000, which is an absurdly small sum to pay for such a car.

Inspection is always encouraged (within Govt. guidelines of course), and this particular car is located with us at The Market HQ near Abingdon; to arrange an appointment please use the ‘Contact Seller’ button at the top of the listing. Feel free to ask any questions or make observations in the comments section below, or try our ‘Frequently Asked Questions’.