It has been referred to as the best automotive evaluation of all time. Nonetheless 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 automobile 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 whole era of automotive fans.
A 12 months earlier, the journal had declared BMW’s 1600-2 “one of the best $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 actually one of the best $2,850 sedan in the entire cotton-picking world.”
This highlight ultimately turned some of the obscure automotive manufacturers imported into the U.S. right into a family title. However on the time of publication, issues had been very completely different for BMW of North America (BMWNA). BMW hadn’t formally exported its vehicles to the U.S. previous to World Conflict II, and only some had been imported by non-public clients. Through the Occupation, American service members found sporty BMWs just like the 328 and 327, however they didn’t deliver sufficient of those vehicles residence to make a lot of an affect. BMW’s postwar product technique didn’t enhance the marque’s visibility through the 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 seek out an viewers for BMW’s V8-powered 507 or some other fashions aimed on the American automobile purchaser. The early-’60s Neue Klasse sedans and 2000 CS coupe additionally missed the mark. By 1966, BMW had offered simply 1,253 vehicles in america.
All of that modified with the launch of the Kind 114 (because it was identified internally). Thanks partially to Automobile and Driver’s glowing evaluation of the 1600-2, BMW’s U.S. gross sales almost quadrupled in 1967, reaching a complete of 4,564 vehicles. Curiously, almost 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. Nonetheless, with the April 1968 subject of Automobile and Driver, that each 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 unbelievable energy to affect readers—a lot of whom had been doubtless tiring of the large American muscle automobile phenomenon.
But it surely 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 mind-set.
To provide you an thought of the ability of this evaluation: it was this piece that finally sparked a grassroots motion that led to my father shopping for a 2002 within the early ’70s. That automobile, 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 comparable tales. However sufficient about that—let’s dive into the evaluation. Listed below are just a few excerpts so that you can decide for your self:
As I sit right here, recent 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 believe fans will purchase as many as these pink-cheeked Bavarians of their leather-based pants and mountain-climbing sneakers wish 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 vehicles twice its dimension and 4 occasions 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 shifting, you already know that Fangio and Moss and Tony Brooks and all these different huge racing studs retired solely as a result of the scary that sometime you’d have certainly one 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 fame as certainly one of America’s most interesting and most influential automotive journalists. Satirically, it additionally obtained him fired from Automobile and Driver, because of his grievance that the 2002’s radio—made by Automobile and Driver advertiser Blaupunkt—“couldn’t choose 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 function, he wrote much more favorable evaluations of BMW cars 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 automobile that made his profession and put BMW on the radar of discerning American fans.
You possibly can learn the complete unique evaluation right here. And for a full retrospective on David E. Davis (who handed away in 2011) head over to Automobile & Driver.
BMW 2002 Picture Gallery
