At the time of writing this Inka Orange custom 1972 BMW 2002tii AC Schnitzer S14 has seven days left on bringatrailer.com for bidding.
For those that need a quick refresher, the 2002tii was the top of the line in the Neue Klasse (new class) BMWs of 1962 to 1977. Unveiled at the 1961 Frankfurt Motor Show, these were the BMWs that would ensure the brand remained solvent after their financial crisis of the 1950’s and featured the genetic makeup that established BMW as a sport sedan brand. At the time, they grabbed peoples imagination and love of driving – even before the cars were taken touring car racing and into an era of championships and records.
For your driving pleasure, this example features a 2.5-liter AC Schnitzer S14 S3 Sport engine attached to a Getrag 265 CR 5-speed dogleg manual. Bringing the chassis up to date, the upgrades also include disc brakes, rack and pinion steering and extensively built performance suspension.
The build was both engineered and executed by Vintage Sports & Restoration and, as a major selling point, has only been driven 450 miles since the restoration was completed. As you can see, the restoration went all the way into the realm of painstakingly stripping the bare-metal before getting into the serious business of building a full on performance retro mod.
Power is comes from a 2.5-liter AC Schnitzer S3 Sport S14 engine. AC Schnitzer is a tuning company that specializes in BMW cars and has quite a reputation for bringing out more performance from M car engines than they start with. The original 2002tii engines made around 130hp. The S14 was the E30 BMW M3 engine, so most likely it made around 200hp originally. There are no numbers given for the finished product, but it wouldn’t be hard to believe it’s more than enough for such a lightweight car.
The level of detail and quality looks consistent all the way through the build. The attention to detail in the ceramic and metal roundel centre caps on the wheels highlight that. After all, if you’re going to be painstaking on the things people can’t see, it would be silly to not pay attention to what they do see. To that end, people following the car will definitely see the LED third brake light and LED tail lights as well as the tips of the custom centre-exit exhaust system.
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The car also has a custom interior. The centre section and door panels are upholstered in leather with M-cloth inserts. The two piece 2002 dash has been treated to orange stitching to go with orange seat belts and painted instrument panel. Seating is in the form of 320i Recaro front seats and 635CSi rear seats. Installed for the drivers tactile experience there’s a MOMO retro steering wheel with an M Sport shift knob and alcantara shift boot.
Purists be damned, this looks like a spectacular package of a car. Others appear to agree and as I sit here pondering how much I could get for a kidney, the current bid is at $66,000.
You can see the listing for the car here for a more detailed breakdown and some really good pictures. Also, if you have any suggestions of how I could bring up the idea of my wife selling her spare kidney to go towards a 45 year old bright orange BMW; then please leave them in the comments below.
