It’s always interesting to see what people will trade for on craigslist. Most of the time its simply other cars, usually fed by a need for a truck or other heavy-duty vehicle. The seller of this 1968 BMW 2000 here on craigslist is interested in either guns or a car hauler for the Bimmer, which he bought after it spent 30 years slumbering in a garage.
It’s an interesting story for sure: long-time ownership in the hands of one gentleman, who passed away and his son inherited the car. The BMW was laid up for over 30 years, a frequent occurrence when there is a lack of time and ambition due to “real world” events that can distract one from his hobby. This new-class BMW sedan will require extensive mechanical refurbishment before returning to the road, and rust repair work in the fenders.
Although the seller doesn’t know much about the car except for that it’s missing both the cylinder head and the title paperwork, he did discover that the car wears highly original Pirelli tires and even a BMW-branded vintage car battery! Those are simply items you don’t see anymore. Does it make this 2000 worth more? Certainly not, but it does goes to demonstrate just how fastidious its original owner was.
There’s the original BMW battery – just plain wild to see that. The seller has admitted he originally planned to turn it into a race car but has run out of time. This old-timer BMW sedan deserves to be saved, especially when equipped with the rare manual transmission. I hope this one gets brought back to life by a sympathetic owner, and one that owns a gun or a car hauler – you know, for trading purposes.
I’m confused. He wants to trade the car; for a car hauler, for the car?
For as in “in exchange for”. I agree the sentence doesn’t read very clear.
Lol it made WAY more sense after I had coffee…
He is a flipper looking for tools.
I’d try and restore the battery for sure
I worked on these at my shop in Germany during the late 70’s. The 1800’s were more common ( same chassis) but I always thought they were under valued compared to the always popular 2 door versions ( the 1600 and 2002’s) They were bigger cars, not as big as the 3.0’s, but nice size. They were very smooth, had decent power and handeling, good brakes. They could be bought for 1/3 what a 2002 would cost. Deffinatly not a race car but a great cruiser for a family, I am sure they were more expensive than the 2002 new. This one would be fun with a manual trans and air conditioning but will need a dedicated enthusiast to bring her back from the brink.
These came with batteries by Hagen, the battery shown is probably a much later replacement with some sort of made up label. 50 years ago battery cells had individual caps, not like this one.
What’s rare on this is not the manual transmission but the fact it’s a 2000 TI model with the big twin Solex carbs. I don’t think you could get (nor would you want) an automatic with this variant.
Having owned a series of 1800 4 door models back when they were late model used cars, I can vouch for Dave Wright’s excellent summary of this model’s endearing qualities and second his wish that it gets returned to the road.