BaT Lists Another Coupe - 1973 one owner

boonies

boonies

Boonies
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Find it here. Malaga & tan with an automatic transmission & newer injected engine.

Overall a very nice starting point. I would like to have seen pictures behind the glove box and better detail in the engine compartment sheet metal as there are other portions of the body work that are showing rust and even rust through.
 
Duncan

Duncan

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I went to see Mark Weiler's car yesterday morning. He seems like a straight-up guy. His BaT auction seems to capture the car's condition honestly from what I could tell. It had been 20+ years since I'd driven a 6-cylinder BMW of this era so my memories of the two Bavarias and one 3.0Si are not fresh.

I think I only ever drove one automatic (an E3) but my recollection was that the transmission (probably an early ZF) was awful. Then my brother bought one with an automatic so I had a pretty firm bias against them. This one's Borg Warner trans was replaced at some point with what is likely a later ZF and it drove like a modern automatic except that flooring the throttle at 55 mph did not result in a kick-down to second gear. Acceleration was nothing like I recall from my manual gearbox BMWs of that era. Does 3200 rpm at 60 mph sound about right? I think I read that the auto-box cars had a higher numerical rear axle ratio.

The ride was not as supple as I remembered but 13-year old tires and old shocks and bushings might explain that. I did year a few clunks when driving over bumps but could not identify whether the noises were from the suspension areas mentioned in the auction text.

I did like that the paint looks pretty decent overall and the leather could be reconditioned. Idle speed was high but I imagine that's a fairly easy fix. I didn't care for the original carbs on my first Bavaria nor the Webers on my second one so EFI would seem to be a great addition.

Window motors were incredibly slow and needed a helping hand. We never got the right rear to drop.

I was able to see the left rear shock tower easily because of the cracked plastic trim in the trunk and it looked fine. No sign of rust there or elsewhere in the trunk. Door bottoms looked solid. I'm not familiar enough with exactly how the front shock tower areas should look but they seemed intact with some wrinkling of the metal in front of the strut attachment point where some collision damage had been partially ironed out. The small dip there was not depressed as far as the right side, causing it to chafe against the bottom of the hood directly above it.

Mark found a local guy to top off the R12 in the AC but it was the coldest September day I can remember (it barely made it over 70˚F) and I didn't try it out.
 
HB Chris

HB Chris

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This e9 has no kick down cable on the throttle housing likely because it was not adaptable from the carbed motor. US 2800s had a 3.45, 3.0s had 3.64, no difference between auto and stick however. The 3.64 was an attempt to recover some performance when the US got reduced compression from 9.0:1 to 8.0:1.
 
posix

posix

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doesn't seem to have a lot of interest. hopefully will pickup in the next two days.
 
teahead

teahead

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Odd w/the low number of bids. I know automatics to draw as much but c'mon, this thing looks really solid.

Q: is that spare tire well bottom OEM? Looks a little diff.

1973_bmw_3-0csi_159594733719e9d86e05986aba99DSC07320-scaled.jpg
 
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