M42club.com - Home of the BMW E30/E36 318i/iS
GENERAL => Off-topic discussion => Topic started by: DesktopDave on December 03, 2014, 06:41:08 PM
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I'm sure this is just publicity, but IMHO it's a waste of a good 700. The same question kept going through my head...why?
If you wanted lightweight car with an E30 interior, why not just start with an E30? Here's their thread. (http://forums.pelicanparts.com/early-bmw-cars-2002-bavaria-etc/840900-1960-modern-bmw-700-sport-coupe-closer-look.html?utm_source=pelican_bmwnewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20141203)
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That's interesting... I've never actually seen or heard of a 700?!
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They're cool old cars. IMHO they're the first modern BMW. Unit-bodied...rack & pinion steering...could possibly have been the first BMW with semi-trailing arms too. Crazy all-drum braking and truly unusual front suspension. A good bit of it was inherited from the Isetta, but it was not derivative. They also produced them in South America for decades after production stopped in Europe.
It ended up being a great little racer, probably the most successful racer they'd built after the war. One of Alpina's founders raced 700s. Best of all, the profits from 700 sales made the 1502 and 2000CS possible.
So without this odd little car, BMW would have been a footnote 50s merger with Daimler Benz.
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One of my Dad's friends has a 700 it's a nice little car, and I think it worth a pretty penny now. I would have used a R series flat twin so I could put it back to original, but it could have been a roller, rusted out, or both. Oh I work on Sundays, and when I was driving to my first call this morning I saw 3 cars on the AZ 101 today. 1 Lamborghini Miura, 1 Ferrari 250 GT vert, and an Alfa out for a Sunday morning drive ... I was a little wowed!
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The 700 is a really cool little car. I've ridden in (but not driven) one and it's a real time capsule. But yeah the one listed is a bit... weird.
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I had a line on two of them a while back. The deal fell through, but it was probably for the best. They were both rollers, both had some rust. I was hoping there was enough left to build one good one. The motors are hard to come by and the transmissions are fragile. Newer BMW boxer motors are a poor choice since they spin in the opposite direction.
I know it's heresy, but I'd figure a decent dual port VW motor & gearbox would be an ideal solution. BMW was going to put an air-cooled flat-4 in them anyway, but opted for the delicious neue klasse instead. While that was an excellent choice for BMW...why not build the BMW 700 as they had originally intended? I suppose it would properly be called a BMW 1400, right?