About two years ago, I put together a short feature on the BMW 507, intended for a future issue of Sports & Exotic Car. Little did we know our ace contributor Karl Ludvigsen was also at work on a similar piece. When Karl’s piece came in, editor Craig Fitzgerald found the two covered a lot of the same ground, and decided to go with the Ludvigsen version for the upcoming October issue (HS&EC 50).
But if you read both, you’ll find some places where the tale diverges. Ludvigsen, it’s safe to assume, drew on his famous Library for his information. On the other hand, the owner of the 507 I photographed was a personal friend of designer Albrecht Graf Goertz, and had his own trove of BMW factory and other period materials.
In the big scheme of things, the differences are minor, but it’s little mysteries like this that make the car world go round. Here’s my version, the Secret History of the BMW 507…
When they introduced the Z8 roadster in 2002, BMW put together a photoshoot with our feature series II 507TS, to highlight their sporty roadster heritage. When management saw a layout with the cars side by side, they understood that the 507 would always make any car with which it was shown look bad, and never ran the ad.
BMW had already reinvented themselves once, as a sports car manufacturer with the pre-war 328, but after the war, the company didn’t have any even remotely sporty car in its lineup. American GIs had brought enough 328s home, however, that there were a few enthusiasts who knew what they were capable of, and wanted more.
Among those with an in-depth knowledge of German cars was the ubiquitous Max Hoffman, then the New York-based General Importer for BMW. Unlike most enthusiasts, he had the leverage and the track record to make a manufacturer pay attention to what he wanted. And he wanted a BMW sports car.
BMW was not empty handed. The big 501 sedan, launched in 1951, was the first automobile they manufactured after the war and used a pre-war six-cylinder, even though the German economy couldn’t support a high-end car. The automobile plant in Eisenach was under Russian administration and therefore lost forever. But tests were already starting with a V-8 engine, just at the production stage. BMW launched it at the 1954 Geneva Motor Show, originally for the sedan.
It was an advanced engine, ideal for powering a sports car, and the company started to think about building a two-seater, a modern sports flagship for the BMW brand. Hoffman, concerned the Germans were strictly focused on engineering, remembered meeting a young designer – an early protégé of Raymond Loewy – named Albrecht Graf Goertz. Hoffman considered him a genius and thought a Graf Goertz design could be a touchstone for sports car style for the late Fifties. Through Hoffman, Graf Goertz produced a sketch for an incredibly beautiful car and BMW commissioned him to design the new model, along with the four-seat 503 coupe.
In Munich, BMW hand-built the first bodies from sheet aluminum, and after not quite 18 months of development time, the first prototypes of the 507 were ready. Graf Goertz himself debuted two examples of the car in the foyer at the Waldorf Astoria in New York. His sketches didn’t include it, but the finished car included a new interpretation of the BMW twin-kidney grille, broad instead of tall and swept elegantly across the front of the car between the headlamps. Infinitely copied, especially among later sporting BMWs, it sported air inlets behind the front wheels with two of the eight external BMW badges, as well as long character lines along the sides; a generally aerodynamic-looking shape; and a seemingly unending hood.
It was the first halo car, intended not to sell in volumes but to state that, in still-suffering postwar Germany, there was pride. “The BMW 507 is not a car that will earn Bayerische Motorenwerk any money,” said BMW. “Its main purpose is to represent BMW’s tradition of sporty, high-quality vehicles.”
The bright red sales brochure for the new V-8 GT emphasized superior performance: 148 hp from 3.2 liters, good for a top speed of 220 KPH (136 MPH). Initially at 7.8:1 compression, later versions made it up to 165 hp by raising the compression and a change in the camshaft involving a bigger rocker arm ratio. The valve diameters also increased to 42 mm on the inlet side and 38 mm on the outlet side, along with upgraded carburetors.
Max Hoffman continued to be enthusiastic about the car—but not about the price. He had anticipated a purchase price of around DM 12,000, but production costs of the alloy body and V-8 drove up the price at launch to DM 26,500 (about $6,300), with a hard top piling on another 1,500 marks. For comparison, list price in Great Britain was £4,201, while a Jaguar XK140 was less than half that at £1,693, and Aston Martin started at £3,901.
Of course, the price tag didn’t deter anyone who could afford one. Owners included Elvis Presley, actors Alain Delon and Ursula Andress, and Olympic gold medalist Toni Sailer, as well as being the car of choice for royalty including car nut Prince Rainier of Monaco; the new Aga Khan; and the kings of Greece and Morocco.
Even Elvis couldn’t win over the American market, though. A footnote in the brochure mentioned the top speed was available only achieved with a seat cover and racing windscreen, leading people to wonder what other claims were in doubt. BMW took that one so seriously, they gave 507 chassis designer Alexander von Falkenhausen (HS&EC #25) the mission to come up with proof. He took a hard top car, gave it an undertray and taped up the inlets. Sealing off the autobahn from Munich to Ingolstadt for the attempt, von Falkenhausen clocked up 220.1 KMH.
The 507 has always occupied a schizophrenic position in the market, part of what kept sales down. The exotic alloy V-8 and exciting lines always said “sports car,” while the price, almost 2,700-pound curb weight and limited power meant its real mission was as a GT. In America, the 1957 Corvette was slightly larger in all dimensions, thousands less (even with 283 fuel injected horsepower) and the base 283 brought 220 hp. Nevertheless, privateers were irresistibly drawn to it for racing. “Hill King” Hans Stuck used a modified 507 for hillclimbs in Europe and if he ever lost in it, we haven’t heard about it. Swiss driver Robert Jenny and Austrian BMW General Importer Wolfgang Denzel also raced 507s.
The biggest attraction has always the design of the 507. Giovanni Michelotti ordered a chassis to offer some opposition to the newcomer Graf Goertz, but he soon gave up the attempt. Raymond Loewy, one-time mentor to the aristocratic creator of the 507, attempted to reinstate the hierarchy of master and student—but failed. Loewy had also been given a chassis by BMW and he commissioned Pichon et Parat to build it. An eyewitness at the Paris Motor Show summed up the result: “It’s fair to assume that someone said to Raymond Lowey: ‘I’d like to go to the masked ball with a BMW 507, can you dream something up…?’ And the master created something that snaps at the front and from the side looks something like a doodle you might scribble on a writing block during a telephone conversation.”
Despite minimal sales, BMW didn’t give up on the 507. There was no question it kept them in the limelight, and helped build a new image for them as a manufacturer of technically advanced products. But on the commercial front, the company was unable to afford the luxury of the expensive and complex production process indefinitely. They produced 251, plus three chassis for special versions. The U.S., originally intended as the primary market, saw only 39 roadsters as new cars.
The majority of 507s have survived, with an estimated 240 roadsters still around today. Production ended in 1960 with two final cars, including our feature car (the owner, a retired airline pilot, wishes to remain anonymous), the last one made.
The 507 is an icon for BMW today, welcome at any concours and untouchable for under $250,000, with recent sales and ads suggesting a million-dollar 507 may not be too far off. But for BMW, the end of production was simply another business decision for a company whose bread and butter was the Isetta microcar. Their 1959 Annual Report simply noted: “Towards the end of the year under review, manufacture of the special car types 503 and 507 was also brought to an end for reasons of ongoing rationalization in production.”
| SPECIFICATIONS | |
| |
| 1957-1960 BMW 507 | |
| |
| ENGINE | |
| Type | OHV V-8, alloy block and head |
| Displacement | 3,168cc (199.3-cu.in.) |
| Bore x stroke | 82 x 75mm |
| Compression ratio | 7.8:1 |
| Horsepower @ RPM | 148 @ 5,000 |
| Fuel system | dual Zenith 32 NDIX dual-barrel downdraught carburetors |
| |
| TRANSMISSION | |
| Type | Four-speed, all synchro, single dry plate clutch |
| Ratios: 1st | 3.776:1 (optional sport 3.54:1) |
| 2nd | 2.353:1 (2.202:1) |
| 3rd | 1.490:1 (1.395:1) |
| 4th | 1.000:1 (1.000:1) |
| Reverse | 5.377:1 (5.030:1) |
| |
| DIFFERENTIAL | |
| Ratio | 3.7:1 (optional 3.42:1, 3.90:1) |
| |
| BRAKES | |
| Type | Hydraulic drum, servo assist |
| Front/rear | 11.18 inches |
| |
| CHASSIS & BODY | |
| Construction | Body on perimeter box frame with tubular crossmembers |
| |
| SUSPENSION | |
| Front | Independent, dual A-arms with trailing link, tube shocks |
| Rear | Banjo axle, tube shocks, spring levers, Panhard rod |
| Wheels | Steel disc, knockoffs |
| Front/rear | 16 x 4.5 inches |
| Tires, Front/rear | 16 x 6 inches |
| |
| WEIGHTS & MEASURES | |
| Wheelbase | 168.5 inches |
| Overall length | 172.4 inches |
| Overall width | 65 inches |
| Overall height | 49.6 inches |
| Shipping weight | 2,689.6 pounds |
| |
| CALCULATED DATA | |
| BHP per CC | 21.41 |
| Weight per BHP | 18.17 pounds |
| Weight per CID | 1.18 pounds |
| |
| PERFORMANCE | |
| 0-60 MPH | 10 seconds |
| Top speed | 136 MPH |
| |
| PRICE | |
| Base Price | US$6,300 |
| |
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