The apotheosis of the three-box car.

Ask a child to draw a car and it will look like a lot like a 2002. It will also look a lot like Ford Falcon, a Lada, or Morris Marina. Yet, this, and only this assemblage of rectangles became an icon, and not only an icon, but, somehow, a would-be sports car. Spa, Monte Carlo, and, (even to this day) the Nurburgring have been sites of contest and triumph for this dour, seemingly obvious 'compact executive car.' Wearing slicks at Willow Springs or spiked tires in the Finnish back-country, the smallest Neue Klasse built a legend. Further, it created a brand. The BMW Car Club of America freely admits it owes its existence to the BMW 2002 and historians credit its broader family, the NK, with saving BMW itself from bankruptcy. In the states, the 2002 was not only the first BMW to sell well, but the first front-engined, water-cooled German car to sell in meaningful numbers, proving that not everything good coming out of Germany had to be penned by Dr. Porsche - with the attendant quirks.

The '02 was quicker in the corners than anything made in America and its 2.0L inline four, while outputting a wheezy 99hp by today's standards, had more horses per liter than anything then produced in an American factory for road use. Further, it kept every last pony when the emissions standards were handed down, already somewhat de-tuned. A torquey, quietly confident motor, the BMW M10 belied its rated output. Roll on power at 3,500 RPM and it would pass anything operating at legal speed on the highway and pull all the way to 110 mph. It would sit there too - set up for the autobahn, the 2002 got smoother and began to reach a buttery harmonic balance in a high speed cruise.

As for aesthetics, there's not one actual straight line on the car. The understated, boxy look is built from hundreds of thoughtful curves, every panel bows and ebbs into a series of unifying lines - the belt line, the bumpers, and the central strake down the hood. This is picked out by thoughtful brightwork, especially on the flanks and tail of the vehicle. This was neither easy to design nor cheap to make, but, critically, there was enough simplicity to enable mass production, with the cars' panels emerging from great Munich's stamping presses at a decent clip, fully formed. Though Hoffmeister and Michelotti wouldn't have admitted it, this is a Bauhaus car, in line with the school's proviso that great design needn't be handmade and exclusive, only carefully considered.

No individual component of the Neue Klasse, especially the 2002, is groundbreaking. The inline four is pedestrian, the 'box coupe' a staple of economy cars, yet the depth of care afforded these machines on the drawing board and in the factory gave rise to a world-beater. Simplicity at this level is very complex indeed.