It has been referred to as the best automotive evaluation of all time. Nevertheless you rank it, “Flip Your Hymnals to 2002” by David E. Davis Jr. modified the automotive world within the U.S. and catapulted BMW of North America into the highlight. It was so insightful that it even led to Davis being fired.
However we’ll get to that in a second.
The 12 months was 1968, and the automotive Davis was testing wasn’t the insane Turbo and even the Tii. These fashions had been nonetheless years away. This was merely the bottom mannequin 2002, which maybe made the best way it drove all of the extra revolutionary to Davis and a complete era of automotive fanatics.
A 12 months earlier, the journal had declared BMW’s 1600-2 “the most effective $2,500 sedan Automobile and Driver ever examined.” With the bigger and extra highly effective 2.0-liter engine, the 2002 turned, as Davis wrote, “most definitely the most effective $2,850 sedan in the entire cotton-picking world.”
This highlight ultimately turned one of the crucial obscure automotive manufacturers imported into the U.S. right into a family title. However on the time of publication, issues had been very totally different for BMW of North America (BMWNA). BMW hadn’t formally exported its automobiles to the U.S. previous to World Struggle II, and only some had been imported by personal clients. Through the Occupation, American service members found sporty BMWs just like the 328 and 327, however they didn’t deliver sufficient of those automobiles residence to make a lot of an influence. BMW’s postwar product technique didn’t enhance the marque’s visibility through the Nineteen Fifties, nor did its disjointed distribution system. Whereas Fred Oppenheimer’s Fadex Company had short-term success with the Isetta microcar, Max Hoffman failed to search out an viewers for BMW’s V8-powered 507 or another fashions aimed on the American automotive purchaser. The early-’60s Neue Klasse sedans and 2000 CS coupe additionally missed the mark. By 1966, BMW had bought simply 1,253 automobiles in the USA.
All of that modified with the launch of the Kind 114 (because it was recognized internally). Thanks partly to Automobile and Driver’s glowing evaluation of the 1600-2, BMW’s U.S. gross sales practically quadrupled in 1967, reaching a complete of 4,564 automobiles. Apparently, practically all of those had been 1600-2s, not the bigger, extra sensible four-door fashions.
Nonetheless, BMW remained a little bit of an fanatic’s secret. Nevertheless, with the April 1968 difficulty of Automobile and Driver, that every one started to vary. As one of many “Massive Three” automotive publications, together with Street & Observe and Motor Pattern, Automobile and Driver had round a million subscribers and unimaginable energy to affect readers—a lot of whom had been seemingly tiring of the massive American muscle automotive phenomenon.
However it wasn’t simply the standard of Davis’s insights that made the evaluation legendary. It was the best way his prose transported readers to a time, a spot, and a way of thinking.
To offer you an thought of the facility of this evaluation: it was this piece that in the end sparked a grassroots motion that led to my father shopping for a 2002 within the early ’70s. That automotive, in flip, gave me the BMW bug after I was a small boy within the early ’80s. I can solely think about numerous readers have related tales. However sufficient about that—let’s dive into the evaluation. Listed below are a number of excerpts so that you can decide for your self:
As I sit right here, contemporary from the elegant embrace of BMW’s new 2002, it happens to me that one thing between 9 and ten million Individuals are going to make a horrible mistake this 12 months.
As far as I’m involved, to hell with all of ‘em. In the event that they’re content material to stay within the automotive darkish, allow them to. I do know concerning the BMW 2002, and I think fanatics will purchase as many as these pink-cheeked Bavarians of their leather-based pants and mountain-climbing footwear want to construct and ship over right here. One thing between 9 and ten million squares will miss out on this neat little 2-door sedan with all of the cojones and brio and elan of automobiles twice its dimension and 4 instances its worth, however some ten thousand eager varieties will purchase them in 1968, so the bulk loses for as soon as.
Depress the clutch. Straightforward. Like there was no spring. Snick. First gear. Take away weight of left foot from clutch. Place weight of proper foot on accelerator. The minute it begins transferring, you recognize that Fangio and Moss and Tony Brooks and all these different massive racing studs retired solely as a result of the dreaded that sometime you’d have one in every of these, and when that day got here, you’d be indomitable. They had been proper. You’re indomitable.
David E Davis
As for David E. Davis Jr., “Flip Your Hymnals to 2002” cemented his status as one in every of America’s most interesting and most influential automotive journalists. Sarcastically, it additionally acquired him fired from Automobile and Driver, because of his criticism that the 2002’s radio—made by Automobile and Driver advertiser Blaupunkt—“couldn’t decide up a Manhattan station from the far finish of the Brooklyn Bridge.”
Afterward, he took a job with the promoting company Campbell-Ewald earlier than returning to Automobile and Driver in 1976, this time as editor-in-chief. In that position, he wrote much more favorable evaluations of BMW vehicles and moved Automobile and Driver headquarters from New York Metropolis to Ann Arbor, Michigan. There, Davis petitioned the town to renumber the journal’s new workplace constructing as 2002 Hogback Street—barely out of sequence on the road grid however a becoming homage to the automotive that made his profession and put BMW on the radar of discerning American fanatics.
You’ll be able to learn your entire authentic evaluation right here. And for a full retrospective on David E. Davis (who handed away in 2011) head over to Automobile & Driver.
BMW 2002 Photograph Gallery
