It doesn’t take much to ruin a great design, and even less to screw up an adequate one. As I laid eyes on this Series 6 BMW, I thought: “How do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways…” Stupid rims both too wide and too big? Check. Wrong bloody colour? Check. Unnecessary / tacky add-ons? Check. Still, looking at it another way, it was a 35-year-old BMW coupé in mint condition. Guess it was time to snap first and ask nitpicking questions later.
There was cause to find some merit in this old gal, of course. The flawlessness of the ensemble was undeniable – you would just never see an old car this clean anywhere but in this country, a fact that continues to amaze me and makes for excellent CC fodder. Another thing that made me smile was the BMW roundel’s paint was peeling off, as they all do. Even the most anally OCD Japanese owner cold prevent that from happening.
Big BMW coupés, as Paul pointed out in one of his posts on the E24, were much finer in their earlier incarnation, a.k.a the 3.0 CSi (E9). Our editor felt that the E24’s biggest issue, design-wise, was the greenhouse looking too tall. Personally, my chief gripe with these is the front overhang, which is just too pronounced. This is made a lot worse on the 5mph-bumper cars of course, but even our feature car here suffers from a bad case of prognathism, to my eyes at least.
This is not really aided by the classic BMW face this car has. Don’t get me wrong: I’m a big fan of the classic BMW face. It made the marque iconic. But some cars wore it better than others, and the massive cowcatcher-like front spoiler really doesn’t do this car any favours.
Photo taken in 1978. Source: Wikicommons
They weren’t always like this. When Paul Bracq authored the design, back in the early ‘70s (as masterfully recounted in Prof. Andreina’s seminal Bracq bio, a must-read), there was a lot more balance to the whole car. The above photograph shows a Euro-spec MY 1976 model – one of the early ones built by Karmann. That’s the original vision, and it wasn’t bad at all. Quite tasty, in fact. Just not quite as sweet as the old E9.
The contrast with the Tokyo car is stark. The clown wheels aside, it’s the spoilers, both front and rear, are just pure eye cancer. Let’s look at that rear one just a wee bit closer, as it really looks like an egregious assault on good taste.
The tiny “M Technic” script on that piece of plastic makes it look official, but I’m not biting. Not sure if this car’s owner wants to make it look like an M, which don’t have those in any case. At least it’s body coloured – a black item would have been quite a bit more offensive to the eye.
And a glance inside proved that this is definitely not an M variant – that there’s an automatic, the antithesis of M in those days. From a purely esthetic point of view, I can’t say this BMW’s interior is all that pleasing, either. The centre stack is a mess of irregularity, with panes sort of angled towards the driver, but seemingly at random. At least it’s as obsessively clean as the rest of the car.
As much as I find things to object to when looking at this car, it’s still a ray of sunshine to see something this old and in this condition being used regularly, which this one certainly is. I found its lair one evening and couldn’t photograph it for lack of light. Came back a few days later in the morning, but it was being taken out by its owner, so I had to return yet another time.
I did not talk to the owner (I rarely get to, as most folks here don’t tend to speak any of the languages I do), but from what I saw he was an impeccably dressed older gentleman, probably in his 70s. This 635 is more than likely his pride and joy since that fateful day when he collected it from the BMW dealership, back in 1985 or thereabouts.
Even in its most unadorned and original 1975 iteration, the Series 6 was not necessarily BMW’s greatest addition to the automotive landscape. It was needed – impossible to imagine a big swanky two-door not sitting atop the range, it was the Great Personal Luxury Coupé Era after all – but it soon gathered ugly add-ons in the shape of spoilers, fat bumpers and lost whatever mojo it had to start off with. Bracq’s BMW saloons always seemed better balanced to me, not to mention inherently more practical. Just lop 100 off this 635 and get me a Series 5, please.
Related posts:
Curbside Classic: 1983 BMW 635 CSi – Love Or Lust?, by PN
Curbside Classic: 1986 BMW 635 CSi (E24) – She’s A Little Bit Dangerous, She’s Got What It Takes To Make Ends Meet, by Brendan Saur
CC For Sale: 1987 BMW M6 – The Ultimate Driving Machine For The Decade Of Excess, by Brendan Saur
Automotive History: Paul Bracq – Neither A Knife Nor A Potato; Part Two, by Don Andreina
COAL: 1983 BMW 633csi, Beginner’s Luck, by Matt Spencer
CC Driveway Outtake: Three Old Cars, One Very Nice One, by PN
You might see beauty in the slim bumper of the early version, but I see an underbite.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Perhaps (probably) it’s just familiarity but like Evan I too prefer the later cars’ look over the original. In fact I somehow even prefer the US version with what I think may be even larger bumpers. It just works. Make mine an ’85 or ’86 635CSi. Or the M6, why not.
when I owned my one and only BMW, I assumed the hood emblem roundel was cloissone. Wrong, as I found out at a do-it-yourself car wash, when I sent the decal flying with the washing wand, leaving only a silvery circle behind.
IIRC, the replacement decal was about double in price from what I thought it might be.
This story is part of why I’ve only owned 1 BMW.
Did these have enough A/C for the Sunbelt?
What’s with the slots on the top of the front bumper? Not enough grille opening?
“Even the most anally OCD Japanese owner cold prevent that from happening.”
My OCD hopes you meant “couldn’t.”
The E9 coupe is definitely prettier but the sharknose has aged well in comparison to 21st century BMW styling. An added plus is they have better rustproofing than the E9.
Personally I don;t mind the 5mph bumpers, perhaps because like the other posters, I am more familiar with the US spec cars. I think this is the same reason why the big grill on Series 2 Jaguar XJ6 looks odd because I am more accustomed to the Series 3 XJ6
Familiarity also means that a black foam Foha spoiler on the rear deck of a 6 series looks normal to me because so many cars had them, including the M6.
I’m with you on the clown wheels, while replacing the stock TRX wheels with a standard tire is practical, one could choose more appropriately sized and styled wheels. like a BBS or turbine spoke. While it’s a style typically associated with Audi a 16″ Ronal R8 would look both attractive and period correct on an E24.
Ronal R8 is close, but Octavo 100+ are perfect on these.
I don’t mind the 5 MPH bumpers, but I absolutely hate the accessory front air dams on 80s BMWs that hang down below the rest of the car’s body lines. Look like cowcatchers on old locomotives, or a ground effects kit missing the back 3/4. E30s were the worst.
That just made me realize that Ford must have been going for that look on MN12 Thunderbirds (which are clearly inspired by the E24) when they started using the SuperCoupe front bumper on ordinary LX models between 92 and 95. SuperCoupes had ground effects on the sides and rear bumper to match the front, and it always drove me nuts how the front ground effects never matched on the LX.
OMG! I thought I was the only one that thought this way about the SC style front bumper going onto regular T-birds for those few years. It looked completely off without the matching side skirts and rear bumper. UGH. I overall love the look of the MN12… the SC or the later 96-97 year models are my favorites. This SC front-only is my least favorite.
Those deep “cowcatchers” were very popular in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s as OEM and aftermarket add-on items.
That was before the manufacturers discovered, “The future is plastic”. And moved toward the trend of smoothly integrated bumpers and ground effect kits in the 1990s.
Clown wheels? These look like 17”s, they’re plain silver and a pretty basic 5 spoke design, they seem pretty fitting actually. I’m not a fan of this particular aftermarket spoiler but I think in all other ways it looks pretty good, I like white on these. I too tend to prefer the later iterations of the E24, especially the M6, and while I can see why this would be judged negatively by E9 fans, I’m really not much of an E9 fan, there’s just too much Corvair in the body.
I actually read your title and thought you were going an entirely different direction.
When launched the 6 series was based upon the E12 (first gen) 5 series. Later in it’s life they moved it over to the E28 platform but with only the mildest of facelifts, big identifier being the slightly smaller inner headlamps.
The headline definitely works with that in mind too.
A ski blade spoiler on a 5 series was quite common from the mid 80s onward, and normally in body colour too. All over white was on trend then too
So in those respects this car is of its time, albeit a low volume choice and colour. The wheels are not though.
I maintain that BMW interiors from this period were rarely bettered, then or now. Avoid the “plastic” wood options and they have aged very well IMHO. YMMV. The instruments in particular were first class.
For many, this is the point where BMW jumped the shark(nose), but for me this is a rare occasion when I like the original clean version and the bespoilered versions about the same, just for different reasons.
I assume the front spoilerizationificationing helps keep the nose down at speed, and the rear one is needed to balance it all out. The rims on the white one work for me and don’t seem too excessive.
-and my what big side windows it has-
After getting used to modern teensy-weensy-itsy-bitsy windows 3/4 the way up the side of the vehicle, these almost look too big.
Almost.
Are those the standard 5mph bumpers or some sort of bodykit thing? The way the black strip on the actual bumper doesn’t match the width of the black stripe on the sides really annoys me – I want to reach through the screen with a brush and paint to ‘fix’ it. 🙂
I wouldn’t mind wheels that size, but I don’t think that particular style does the car any favours. And is sitting right? The rear end looks a bit high.
The way the black strip on the actual bumper doesn’t match the width of the black stripe on the sides really annoys me.
That’s exactly my thoughts and what jumped out at me the first thing. It looked like the BMW ran out of money before the whole ground effect look could be finished.
I quite like the look of this one – possibly due to being a child of the 80s rather than the 70s
I hated the original wheels, it’s a pain in the ass to clean BBS style wheels!
The wheels on a car is either an original AC Schnitzer or the aftermarket replica of those. Very easy to clean from the usual brake dust that BMWs produce.
The owner can’t be that anal about his car. The front seats don’t match each other!
A thing of beauty