Speaking of relatively unusual BMWs, this shot of an 1802 Touring posted at the Cohort by Martin Reiss made me wonder: why wasn’t the hatchback Touring body imported to the US?
I don’t have time to Google around for an answer this morning, so maybe one of you has a good explanation. But my only immediate guess is Max Hoffman, who was the sole distributor of BMWs in the US at the time and “the father of the 2002” wasn’t keen on it. Does anyone else have a good explanation? Would it have been popular in the US?
To these American eyes, this thing loses that special something that made the 2002 hit that unique combination of buttoned-down and sporting. It really looks like a generic European hatchback of the time. First, I doubt that it would have sold well and second I wonder if its lackluster looks would have hurt sales of the “good” 2002 early on.
Wasn’t it limited-production and considerably more expensive than the sedan? It can’t be “Americans don’t like hatchbacks”, three-door sporty coupes were red-hot in the early ’70s (and the E21/E30 3 Series’ lack of a hatch was a key part of that mindset’s formation).
Personally I think it’s the cautiousness of the German *Edelmarken*; kind of the opposite of GM-think, rather than plunging into the future with both feet when they should’ve proceeded more cautiously they do the opposite, here they took what should’ve been a straight replacement for the trunked 2002 with no looking back and no non-hatch 3er ever, farmed it out to Karmann (I think) and dropped it without a replacement.
Maybe it’s not “Americans don’t like hatchbacks”. But maybe it’s “Americans associate ‘hatchback’ with ‘economy car'”. If you watched the sitcom Frasier in the 1990s, there was a series of episodes where Niles was separated from Maris and she had his bank accounts frozen, forcing him to trade his Mercedes for “a hatchback”. The model was never specified nor was the car ever seen on screen (possibly they didn’t want to imply that any particular model was bad or undesirable), but it was clear from context that “hatchback” was supposed to mean “cheap econobox”. So getting back to the subject at hand, maybe BMW was afraid offering a hatchback would dilute their brand, that it would give them an “economy car” image.
Yes, but that “Frasier” episode was in the 90’s, when sedans ruled. Don’t remember any sit com jokes about hatchbacks in the 60’s or 70’s. VW bugs were not hatches, and plenty of jokes about them.
And (quoting myself) the E21/E30 3 Series’ *lack* of a hatch was a key part of that mindset’s formation.
Particularly since all E21s and a high percentage of E30s were two-door sedans. In the ’70s for the Pinto, Vega, Corolla, Datsun 210 and so on the two-door sedan was the absolute base cheapskate model and the hatchback coupe a step up. All but the Pinto were “classic” three-box shapes in “Prices Starting At…” form, too.
And if Frasier joins the ’90s TV revival bandwagon I’d bet money he’s driving a CUV which is nothing more than a hatchback with a lift kit.
Nah, Frazier would be BMW X5 or more likely a Tesla with Niles going Range Rover for Daphne’s sake.
OK, wagon with a lift kit then. I can see Niles driving an Evoque. Or if they weren’t in different cities, just taking Roseanne’s Uber everywhere…
Yes, and as I remember it, the car was referred to as a “hunchback”. The episode came out during my days of driving a basic, poverty-spec Mazda 323, so I could certainly commiserate.
At the time, In American eyes, a hatchback meant cheap, and throwaway. People in the states preferred a “Trunk” and a notchback look. Today may be different, but then, A hatchback meant Pinto, Vega, Corolla. Not a German touring coupe.
But all of those were available in 2 door sedans or coupes too, and were fairly new on the market. I don’t think there was time yet for hatchbacks to gain a reputation of any sort. And even then there were some more upscale hatchbacks like the Saab 99. As for fastback styling, there were plenty of non-cheap, non-hatch fastback coupes made by U.S. manufacturers in their mid-size and even large cars.
I think the “hatchback=cheap” thing started in the mid to late ’80s, when millions of Omnis, Escorts, and Citations filled the streets, and by the ’90s many economy car buyers wanted a notchback that would look more like a larger, more expensive car.
Of course, hatchbacks have made a big comeback in America since then, with most smaller cars offering them. And with the Audi A7/S7, BMW 6 series GT, Porsche Panamera, and Tesla Model S all rocking hatchbacks, any perception that hatchbacks belong only on cheap cars has dissipated.
I’m sure it’s because the touring wasn’t popular in Europe in the first place. Over the four year production run from 1971-1974, BMW only sold 25,827. If it was a marginal seller there, it very well could have been dead on arrival here.
I don’t believe it was very popular in Europe either. Hoffman probably figured the regular model was enough to deal with and distribute rather than introducing another more or less equivalent choice that would dilute the market a little bit more.
The below seems to be a good source for production numbers of the 2002 and other Neue Klasse vehicles including the touring. I don’t have the time to parse and count it all out now but a quick glance confirms Touring production to be a very small subset of overall production.
https://www.bmw2002faq.com/articles.html/technical-articles/history-and-reference/production-numbers-r228/
Personally I don’t find it all that attractive. Sure, it’s neat and interesting but probably more due to it being less familiar rather than “better”. Given the choice back in the day and probably even now I’d choose a trunked version all day long. Und bitte machen Sie meinen einen tii!
On the flipside, trying to look at it from 1970 eyes it would surely be more modern since the 2002’s bubble rear window was at least five years out of date by then.
Your chart adds up to 30,206 cars, a bit more than what I listed above from what I found. That chart also says 861,940 02 series cars were built in total. I will defer to your information provided. The point still stands that the touring was only 3.5% of the production run.
From that profile it reminds me a bit of a Hillman Imp.
Absolutely. And that isn’t a good thing.
And the Imp was a rear-engined hatchback.
I don’t know whether it would have been popular, but I like it.
Agreed with all the comments so far.
At best they might have stuck one in the corner of a motor show stand to gauge reactions; which no doubt would have been mostly “why?”
The Touring has always struck me as a mini-wagon, the proportions are too awkward to be good looking. The sedan only early 3-series models says how well it went.
I suspect available production volume may have been fully taken up by European demand, added to a perception (at least) of American reluctance to embrace hatchbacks. Even now, the Audi A3, Mercedes A class and BMW 1 series are essentially hatchback sin Europe, but saloons in the US and China.
Survivors are rare now over here, much rarer than saloons and even convertibles.
The production run dates 71-74 partly answers the question as hatchbacks were very new and not widely appreciated. The Austin America had the right shape in the rear, but had a conventional trunk. The early VW Dasher, in 74, had a trunk, in spite of the fastback bodywork. While the Vega debuted with a hatchback version, first year Pintos all had a trunk. By 74 seemingly everyone took a Sawzall to the back of their small models.
BMW did import the 318ti hatchback to the US in the late 90s. I looked one over at the auto show in 97, but didn’t think much of it. A coworker bought one a year or two later. I finally asked her what color her’s was because I saw so many different ones in the parking lot. Her’s was the silver one. All the others I saw were service loaners because her Bimmer was in the shop almost constantly.
By the way, in Ford’s quarterly financial report this afternoon, the company announced they will not invest another nickle in conventional passenger sedans for the US market. All they will offer will be the Mustang, a jacked up, plastic clad Outback wannabe “Focus Active” and a horde of SUVs and trucks.
I’m surprised they’re not sticking with at least a wider line of Focuses. Drop the sedan – the Active will do for all the “don’t want a hatchback” types, at a fraction of the tooling costs – and keep the regular SE and hot-hatch ST along with a price leader to replace both the Fiesta and the currently sedan-only Focus S.
Looked up the 318ti. I don’t remember ever seeing one. But I swear I remember an earlier hatchback BMW in the US. Maybe someone brought a European one over.
I’m with the consensus that tastes in the US have typically favored notchback over hatchback, as with the difference in sales between the VW Jetta and VW Golf. Also the closest equivalent to the 2000 Touring sold in the US, the 318ti sold very poorly compared to the mainstream 3 series which strengthens the reasoning that BMW didn’t expect to sell enough. A true station wagon with 5 doors might have done better since small wagons from other import brands sold well in the 70s.
As an aside, were these cars ever any color besides Orange?
You pointed out something I was going to note…yes, it seems that nearly every one of these seen nowadays is orange (“Inka Orange” to use the actual BMW term). Very period.
It’s also worth noting that regardless of how popular these might have been in the day, they draw crazy high $ now. Even relative to already high 2002 prices. I’ve never seen one, rusty or not, for less than about $16K.
Agreeing with other commenters. The Touring came out in 1971. Aside from the cheap subcompacts, the hatchback was virtually nonexistent in 1971. SAAB didn’t have a hatchback 99 until MY1975, and even then, they sold only a handful in the US.
Bigger-than-subcompact hatchbacks *never* caught on in the US in any numbers.Camry, 626, Corsica… None of them sold in numbers even close to their sedan counterparts. Maybe an exception for the GM X-bodies, but still…
Europe did have the quite popular Renault 4 and Renault 16 well before, albeit both were four-doors with a hatch and the R4 could almost be termed a wagon. But the 16 was a genuine hatchback.
I think the Pinto and Vega stigmatized the hatchback very quickly in the US … like others, I remember the term already being commonly used to describe a small inexpensive car when I bought my (3 year old) Vega in 1976.
Two reasons I think. 1. BMW was a driver’s car, not so much a shopping trolley like the Simca 1100. 2. This was not an attractive car.
There was an example made for the e21, but by German dealer Faigal…
And someone, maybe Karmann, did this proposal for the 6-series
This was not an attractive car.
Agreed. And it’s about as inorganic as it can be. But I can see why they tried it over there, as hatchbacks are madly popular. One has to have something to bring home the IKEA boxes, even if one has “a driver’s car.”
Yep. Almost certainly the beginning and end of why it didn’t travel.
Though much later, the 3-door E36 did, and it was little better. And the E46 one, which got at least as far as Aus, was so gob-smackingly bad, I’m amazed it was allowed out the door let alone the country.
Never sure what “organic” (or inorganic, natch) means in this sort of context?
Slightly off topic, but here in Soviet Canuckistan the much-maligned hatchback is still very popular. The vast majority of Mazda 3’s are hatches here, and hatches are popular enough that Honda offers a Civic hatchback for the first time in decades. Hyundai offers the Accent hatchback for Canada only.
I don’t have a hatchback at the moment, as my Rio was returned recently, but I do miss the ability to fold down the seat and put big stuff in. My 2008 Fit was just brilliant with the Magic Seat system.
Hatchbacks are in fact very popular in the USA. They are called “CUV’s” or something like that.
I remember a neighbour of ours in southern France had one (a wine-red 2002ti, IIRC) well into the ’90s. By that time, these were very scarce, as most had already rusted away. He kept it for ages because he said it had “saved [his] life” one day, back in the ’70s. He had it completely re-built and used it sparingly, but kept it in very good nick.
Not my favourite BMW ever for sure, but then the marque had made some stunners. Never realised they were not sold outside of Europe, but it makes sense. Especially if one imagines the 5mph bumpers on it.
Reading through the comment, one thing that hasn’t been discussed was the probable cost of engineering and certifying the 2002 Touring to meet the US FMVSS regulations. Despite 2002 Touring sharing the same body chassis with saloon, US regulations require each model type and variation to be individually crash-tested, be it saloon, estate, hatchback, and like as well as different style variation.
That’s why Audi and BMW would not bother with Avant and Touring version for the North American market.
Low volume would not justify adding more cost to the 2002 touring in the highly competitve market…
At the time of the 2002 Touring, active crash safety performance testing wasn’t required for sale. The FMVSS required specific features (eg, dual circuit master cylinder), which already were installed in the 2002 coupe. When 5mph bumpers were required, the same 5mph bumper design could be used on any vehicle without specific testing if it had been tested up to that maximum weight; a 2002 Touring compliant bumper could be used on the coupe without recertification. Bumper “testing” basically consisted of a weighted prototype chassis being slowly towed into a wall.
Many years back there was a 1602 Touring locally, a left hooker brought over by a German chap. Eventually he sold it on, and it ended up with a near neighbour who ran small BMWs and bought it for spares. When he moved away – without selling his house – the remains of the Touring was left in the garden, and I remember scavenging the carcass for anything usable. Ugly car though.
It probably would have been as popular as the 1978-80 Buick Century & the Oldsmobile Cutlass Salon cousin. Fastback/hatchback styling is really difficult to make it look good from all angles. See picture attached.
The GM fastbacks were sedans, not hatchbacks, so there was no advantage in practicality over a notchback. That must have hurt sales too.
Eh, that’s just a lousy design.
One of the prettiest American cars of the 70s is the Hornet Hatchback (the car that James Bond barrel rolls across the missing bridge).
The complication of fastback design is rear seat headroom, as shown by the Century and Cutlass. That roof was shared with the sedan. Maybe the more utilitarian sedan could tolerate a clumsy roof and a side view with a thousand roof posts and window frames, but an awkward two door sedan that shared a showroom with a decent looking coupe and didn’t have any practical advantages was going to be a dud. In retrospect, maybe the only reason to sell the two door sedan was to make the coupes look much better by comparison.
You’re generally correct that ‘convex’ fastbacks like the GM B bodies and the Lancia Beta are aesthetically challenging. But the 1979 Chevy Citation and Pontiac Phoenix hatchback sedans were smash hits until the word got out about the mechanical misery inside. If you told me people bought them despite their appearance instead of because of it, I wouldn’t argue, but the combination of family utility and modern efficiency seems to have been persuasive. GM was on a roll with the downsized B/C and A cars, and buyers had no particular reason to think the new X cars would be much worse than the standards of the period.
The broad German public was really just introduced to subcompact hatchbacks with the VW Golf back in 1973.
The 02 hatchback which was launched earlier than the VW Golf sold poorly over here.
Why? Well, it was considered ugly. And crazy expensive. It had a fully carpeted boot though…and a split rear bench.
Maybe it was just too ahead of it´s time.
An expensive car is mostly a prestige purchase. Utilitarian features work against that image (unless the ‘utility’ is also prestigious–‘I have many expensive goods and expensive hobbies that require a special car, which is also expensive’).
I´d take it in a heartbeat!
sideview is unfortunate though…
It’s not as handsome as the sedan was, and while BMW might not have been a ‘premium’ brand yet in the early ’70s, remember the E36 318ti (the more modern version of this) flopped in the US market in the early 1990s, as well as the C-Class hatchback Mercedes introduced a decade later.
Two things wished BMW did after the BMW 02.
1) Produced hatchback versions of the E21 and E30 along with 5-door hatchback versions of the E36/E46 Compact.
2) Carried over the 2-litre BMW M10 Turbo engine to the E21 and E30 along with producing turbocharged versions of the 1.9 M43/M44 (possibly enlarged to 2-litres) and the 2-litre N42/N45/M46/N43 4-cylinder engines.