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Narrative: Eisrennen '69
Narrative: Eisrennen '69
Slow were the cars, cold was the ground
Slow were the cars, cold was the ground
May 15th, 2020
It's October 1969 and, with freezing hands, you're cutting a sheet of tarp to block off the kidney grills of your new 2002. On the ice course, water cooling is a liability. Anti-freeze does its job, but it won't help you get the temperature gauge off the lower peg. The 911s, and there are a lot of them, sit aloof in their air-cooled mirror universe, idling to keep their oil, (all nine liters) flowing. Snow and droplets of fresh-melted water flutter up in the wash of their tailpipes. The cars in this paddock are about to go racing, but they are not race cars. There are no fender flares here, no cages. You don't need fat tires, and you don't need the weight and impediment to escape that a cage entails. Escape is certainly something to consider - they told you that if the lake starts to go, keep driving, make hell-for-leather for the shore or at least the thicker edges of ice pack.
When the mad spectacle starts the 911s bite quick - all that weight on the drive wheels - but the corners are not their friends. The lake asks for neutral handling that the Stuttgarters cannot deliver. The Saabs are in a class of their own and winning of course, but behind them it's anyone's race. A Beetle, clearly tuned and in the hands of a half-mad Finn is dicing with a Mini for what looks like the middle of the pack until a red '67 Porsche finally finds its pace through the turn to the back straight - like a fawn learning to walk - and drops a gear. It rolls to intercept, drafting behind the mini then passing between it and the souped-up Nazi runabout.
Your twin side-sucking Solexs awaken as you try to copy the Porsche's line. There's no matching the Porsche's acceleration but you can stop and turn at the same time on a consistent basis, so when, the big drunken oval cut into the snow on the lake throws up another corner, you might have him. You're through the interloping economy cars and on his tail as you enter the sweeping bend that will spit you onto the main straight. He loses it here. The breaks stop the car but on the ice the flat six in the tail keeps moving, sideways, and the whole contraption spins out. To his credit, he gets it back, but his line is gone and heads into the snowy embankment, mounded up by the plow that cut the track this morning. There's no real damage as the 911 comes to rest, nose skyward. The driver cuts the engine and scrambles out and up the embankment, then standing while patting his coat pockets down for cigarettes.
Sports Purpose: Mark Visconti's Pikes Peak Car
Sports Purpose: Mark Visconti's Pikes Peak Car
Into thin air
Into thin air
May 6th, 2020
Taking a carbureted car to the top of the world is no mean feat, doing it under competition conditions is an even greater challenge. Mark Visconti is a very accomplished guy, an automotive engineering consultant working at the cutting edge for firms including Tesla Motors - so it's quite interesting to see what a vintage racing project looks like with his hand on the tiller. In a word, it's purposeful. There's little allowance for aesthetics here, the bumpers have been cut off, a massive 'doghouse' sits on the hood to host an oversized air cleaner, allowing the car to survive the dusty off road stages while still breathing at altitudes in excess of 13,000 feet. The car suffered a DNF during its first outing in 2010 but returned with avengeance in 2011, and was the class winner in the Vintage Under Four Litre category. Contemplate the menacing pack of sub-4.0 vintage cars - 911's, Jags, 240Z's, etc. that this entails!
Fascinatingly, the 2010 DNF was the result of a badly calibrated custom Holley EFI system, and it was only a reversion to carburetion, backed with some 110 octane race gas, that proved successful the next year. If I may speculate, I would say that's a case of 'the devil you know.'
Found: The Engine from the First 2002 in the United States
Found: The Engine from the First 2002 in the United States
Turn your hymnals to 1660001
Turn your hymnals to 1660001
May 2nd, 2020
Car number 1660001 was the first US specification 2002 and, therefore, probably the most important 2002 of all time. Without the US market, BMW, if it was still around at all, would probably be a part of Mercedes or another vassal of VAG. 1660001 was a press car, along with her sister 1660002. There's even odds that 1660001 is the car from the road test that launched an icon. Even if 002 was used instead, there's no doubt that 001 played a definitive role in the critical early days of the 2002. Since we know the car was eventually sold on, it was reasonable to assume, in the absence of any registry entries, that 001 had probably been lost to time and with the 2002 collector market a touch more sane and less numbers obsessed that some others, no earnest effort was launched to track down the car, let alone any scant trace of it.
In the absence of that effort, 001 came to us. BMW2002FAQ.com user 'kbobwhite' bought a 1600-2 as a restoration project and discovered that not only did his 1600 sport a 2.0L motor, it sported the first American market 2.0. To be clear, he doesn't have car 001 (what a coup that would have been) but he does have the engine, the heart, the most distinctive feature, of the earnest little '02 that launched a brand. Sadly, this means that car 001 is probably long gone, but we've now found more of that car than anybody every expected. I, for one, hope the motor is restored and preserved as a stand-alone artifact, with kbobwhite's 1600 getting a less historically important engine. That said, if he decides to keep the motor in the car, there's something poetic about the first 2002 motor powering a 2.0 swapped 1600, as that's where the 2002 saga began in the first place.
You can read the ongoing thread here.
kbobwhite's photo of the engine number, something we'd never though we would see.
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