At the end of the 1950s, BMW’s condition was far from phenomenal. The company’s management realised that the brand’s continued existence was only possible with the creation of a new mid-range car. It could not be ‘some’ middle-class car. One had to offer customers something affordable, something that would have a real chance of storming the sales charts. The snag is that it takes time and costs a lot of money to prepare such a car. BMW may not have lacked enthusiasm, but it did lack money. As befits a story with a happy conclusion, a racing driver and designer – Wolfgang Denzel, BMW’s general importer in Austria – came to the Bavarians’ aid. Denzel had an idea!

How about reusing the components of the 600 model, whose manufacturing brought a very moderate success from business perspective? Of course, parts would have to be set in a completely different package. Danzel presented the completed designs quickly and his ideas were appealing. The BMW management instructed him to develop a prototype. Giovanni Michelotti, a great Italian designer himself, helped with the work.

This is how the BMW 700 was born: a German car breathing Italian freshness. Technology enthusiasts will have nothing to sigh over here. The car is powered by a motorcycle-derived, two cylinders 32-hp, seven hundred cc boxer engine. The LS symbol tells us that we are dealing with a two-door sedan from the last years of production (1962-1965). The market still offered a cabriolet version and a coupe with a distinctively shorter cab. The number of 188,121 pieces produced is not impressive today, but in the mid-1960s it was a sizeable quantity. Considerable enough to help BMW recover from the crisis and survive. At least until a completely new model came along. The new model turned out to be the Neue Klasse, and then – after that, things only got better. How did this unassuming car end up in the 2019 collection? Let us tell the story in the words of the owner:
– When I was at a BMW convention in Bremerhaven, Helmut called me. He said he had come across an interesting model and was just talking to the son of the 94-year-old owner. It turned out that Helmut’s caller had received the BMW 700 from his mother in 1998.

The car had a broken engine that no one had ever repaired. The man limited taking care of it to just painting the bodywork with a clear coat. Then he put the car in his paint and varnish shop as a decoration. Years later, when the interior of the shop needed renovation, the car simply started to get in the way, so he took it out and never brought back to its previous place.

The engine was indeed faulty. Helmut and his workshop repaired it, although not perfectly. Should it break down again, this time for good, there is a second unit, brand new, never assembled, waiting in the Collection’s storage.

The car is in a state of preservation. The upholstery, the rubbing on the seats, the flaws, and imperfections due to use are all marks that one would not like to disappear. All you need to do is put the luckily preserved first number plates in their positions and jump back to the year 1964 again.