This non-US spec BMW 323i ahead of me in traffic made some wonderful music through its dual exhausts as the driver blipped the throttle a few times, and then when it took off, rather abruptly. It reminded me of just how badly deprived Americans were of what was arguably the hottest and finest small sporty sedan of its time.
BMW was a source of considerable frustration and disappointment in the late 70s and early 80s for American enthusiasts. While 3-series aficionados were stuck with only lo-po four cylinder engines all the way to 1984, when the first and only six in the E30 that was offered us was the low-rev “Eta” six in the 325e. Meanwhile, the rest of the world was reveling in the silky new M20 six cylinder already as of 1977. And the bigger of the two, the 323i, was the hot small sedan of the times, with its 143 hp and 120 mph top speed. Arghh! It’s the reason why I didn’t consider the 101 hp 320i in 1983, when I bought a T-Bird Turbo Coupe instead. If the 323i had been available, it would have been mine.
Americans love power, and the original BMW 2002 was specifically created for power-hungry Americans. Not until ten years later, in 1987, would the 325i/325iS finally have a proper BMW six.
I’ve actually seen a couple of these locally. From 1994 to 1997, I worked as a mechanic and gas pump jockey at Jacob’s Unocal on the corner of 3rd and Robertson, just blocks from the Beverly Center mall. A black one, lowered and shorn of all its badges, used to go hauling ass past us almost every morning. It had no badges, but the throaty drone of that BMW six coming from that small E21 body was unmistakable. Another dead giveaway was the fluted filler panel between the taillights, and the low – mounted license plate.
I used to see another one of these parked near my apartment in Inglewood. It had all its badges, along with the small bumpers and low bumper mounted license plate. The color was strange. The best way I could describe it was a metallic dusty rose. It looked factory, though. Funny thing is, every time I saw it was parked in front of a local dollar store.
When I worked near Glendale, on the drive home I frequently used to spot the ultimate E21. It was an Alpina B6 2.8. For those who never heard of that model, Alpina, an aftermarket tuning firm working closely with BMW, took the E21 body shell and shoehorned the 2.8 liter six from the 2800 / Bavaria sedan into it. From what I understand, those are very rare. It’s driver was a young, clean-cut, shirt and tie type.
Several years back, someone in Hollywood was selling a federalized, Hartge tuned 323i on CL.
There were quite a few grey market 323i models (along with all kinds of other euro model BMW’s) running around LA in the mid 80’s and 90’s. The grey market rules got stricter and pretty much shut down eventually because the dealerships of course did not like the lost sales. For a while it was a big business importing and federalizing BMW’s and Mercedes, along with other European makes. Around the same time (93-97) I was working for BMW dealers in the LA area. We had the ability to order parts for grey market cars and had European model fiches. The parts were ordered on a pre pay no return basis. Some dealers refused to work on them, others would but charged big time. The rules changed and the grey market importers were pretty much shut down. These cars were expensive to maintain. The 320i really was a slow car, especially in automatic form. My (stick shift) Rabbit had no problem out running a 320i.
Only the first couple years of US E21 320i production had 2.0 liter M10 engines. When the European 320 became the 320/6, signifying that the M10 4 cylinder was replaced by the M20 6 cylinder, production of the M10 2.0 liter stopped. BMW simply replaced the 2.0 with the 1.8 liter M10 4 cylinder in the US and kept calling the car the 320i for the next four years. When the E30 came out in 1984, the model designation changed to 318i, but the fact is we’d been getting 318i’s for years.
Incidentally, Wikipedia is wrong about this topic. They say the engine size shrank because of emissions certification.
Indeed. I had no trouble at all smoking 320i’s with my mildly built 1970 Toyota Corona Mark II 2 door hardtop, back in the early-mid 1980’s And no yuppie back then, liked to be beat by a 19 year old in a 13 year old Toyota. I just laughed at those entry level BMW’s, and their owners back then.
Two things that drove the grey import market to its grave in the United States:
Some of grey importers had committed mail fraud and were caught by the federal agencies. A final ‘nail in the coffin’ in 1985 was perhaps Albert Mardikian who submitted the fraudulent emission test results, showing the modifications were carried out but never did. His fraud was the largest and most prolific ever. Others would use same photos of safety equipment modifications over and over when submitting the applications to the NHTSA for certification. Some would install the required equipment, take photos, then remove the equipment to be used again in other vehicles. A few used the ‘personal use exemption’ to register the vehicles with their relatives, friends, and acquaintances then sold them without any required modifications.
Secondly, the manufacturers and their official US importers, namely Mercedes-Benz, lobbied hard to close the loophole. It was not due to the grey import stealing the sales from the official US importers. It was mostly because of the dreadful product liability. They did not want to be liable for any injury, death, or damage from shoddily modified grey imports. They also had to invest millions of dollars to engineer and certificate their vehicles as to meet the US regulations as well as setting aside the required x-amount of money for product liability. Last thing they want is some idiot ruining their return of investment and reputation.
After driving several 2002 models I developed a serious case of “Automotive Lust” for BMW cars. To my teenage tastes, developed after a life time of devouring every issue of “Road & Track” and “Car & Driver” magazines that Dad was subscribed to, a 2002 was the perfect 4 passenger, reliable sporty car I needed.
When the American spec 3 series I arrived in New Orleans, I had High Hopes for the 2002 successor.
WHAT a disappointment the new 320 was! Slower and limp suspension was my first impression. A Yuppie BMW?? And about that price increase….
I always suspected that the European spec 320 was what “I” wanted/needed.
Thanks for another excellent article, Paul, confirming my suspicions.
My father regretted leasing a US version of 1984 BMW 318i with puny motor for five years in Dallas. He had high hope of ‘recapturing his youth’ when he owned BMW 2002 in Germany from 1968 to 1972. His 318i didn’t help…
Does this also happen to be a very early one, since it lacks the black panel between the tail lamps? Or was it removed?
So when did Germany require a third brake light on passenger vehicles? Nice looking car even though the rear end looks a bit odd and I like the back story.
Not until 1998.
I agree on the rear end, the high and thin tail lights were completely different from that era BMW styling, and unusual at the time in general.
323, also the year of Alexander the Great’s death. These thing are supposed to come in 3s, right
Though the US-spec E21 320i was depressing, BMW could unfortunately get away with it because there were so few direct competitors. The Audi 4000 coupe and the Quattro appeared late in the E21’s run, but Acura and the Mercedes 190 didn’t exist yet. The pony cars appealed to a much different audience, and the Z-Car was getting heavier. The RX-7, Supra, and Starion were larger “GT” cars as well. Thankfully, the 3er’s competition intensified during the E30 era, leading to a better Bimmer.
Edit: Okay, one competitor was Saab…and who else?
Alfa Romeo was the only BMW-competitor in the seventies / early eighties.
In the early eighties this Giulietta, in the seventies the Giulia.
Dolomite Sprint in the seventies. Don’t laugh!
I don’t ! It is clearly a compact sporty / sports sedan.
We didn’t get the Dolomite in the States, though. There are a couple gray-market ones floating around, but U.S. Triumph distributors eventually (I think shortly after the merger of Standard-Triumph and Rover) convinced the factory to stop trying to make them sell Triumph sedans.
Don’t get me wrong, the European Dolomite Sprint was an E21 rival, but if you said “Dolomite” to an American, they’d think you meant the 1975 blaxploitation movie Dolemite.
A rare m version (one of one)
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3871/15268307361_0058039681_b.jpg
If I could find a decent E21, I’d be all over it. I briefly had a really early production 320i that had some carry over parts from the E10…different style of key, the ignition switch was different than the normal E21…I forget what other quirks it had, but it was a rusty mess and became a parts donor for a slightly less rusty one. I bought a 1981 320i parts car once that had a BAD ant infestation…must have been parked under a tree, but I had to fumigate it before I could strip parts off the poor thing.
These cars have become almost extinct in Cincinnati…the tin worm must have killed them off. For that matter, the only E30s I see are nasty…lowered, big wheels and bandaid tires, fart can mufflers. Yuck.
BTW, I don’t mind the eta six…lots of torque, really relaxed cruising, but it really suits an automatic 528e better than any 3-series car. A 528e can be driven just like a 524td…lots of torque to lug it around, keep the RPMs down and just let it do its thing. Similar Hp and torque ratings, similar performance. My 528e’s got 28 or more MPG in the mix of driving I do, which isn’t bad for a car that size.
I had one of the usual USA 320is for a while, but it wasn’t that special. It was built for comfort, not speed. I loved the great visibility, and it had a very smooth and supple ride. I miss its fresh air vent on the dash that blew cold air at my head while I toasted my toes below on cold days. Why can’t I find a car that does that today? And the reddish-brown paint job was sublime. But that’s all I missed when I transitioned towards SAABs and Audis. They were much more mechanically ambitious, but only available the same boring red, silver, black and white.
A tuned 323 would be a pretty desirable car, though.
Living in Southern California, I would also like to see a modern car that didn’t run the fresh air vents through the heater (or that at least gave you the option of putting fresh air from the cowl through the dashboard vents rather than only through the defogger outlets). I hate having to run the A/C just to get a little cool air on my face when it really shouldn’t be necessary.
I test-drove an Eta-engined 325 about 15 years ago. I’d long loved the look of the E30, so was considering buying one. Sadly the car was ruined by the Eta 6. Even though it had a manual trans, it just had no ‘go’, and I didn’t buy it (or any other BMW for that matter) because I discovered 6-cylinder Nissan Skylines did have loads of ‘go’ for much less dough!