At $15,000, Could This 1978 BMW 316 Get You To Appreciate The Lesser Things In Life?

The ad for today’s Nice Price or No Dice BMW 316 claims it to have been imported from Germany and to have all its papers in order. Let’s see if it’s priced to make another big move.

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Based on the comments, there was no love lost between most of you and the 1978 Dodge Omni that came under our adjudication yesterday. The $3,800 asking price was appreciably low, but according to you, even that was a check the car couldn’t cash. In the end, that manifested in a surprising 57 percent No Dice loss.

While it may have been built in the ’80s, yesterday’s Omni was truly a product of the ’70s, carrying much of the baggage that assertion implies. Today’s 1978 BMW 316 is also a product of the ’70s, which was a tepid time even for BMW. Consider the fact that the E21 that debuted mid-decade during the ’70s is generally given the Jan Brady treatment by fans of the marque, falling between two beloved models, the Neue Klasse 2002 of the late ’60s and the breakout E30 that followed in the ’80s. That makes it something of an inauspicious start to the 3 Series line.

Here in the U.S., we only officially received the four-cylinder 320i, which gets 110 horsepower out of its 1998 cc K-Jetronic-injected four-cylinder. Later 320s in the U.S. were fitted with a smaller 1.8-liter four that makes only 102 horsepower. Elsewhere, the E21 could be had with a number of smaller fours and slightly bigger sixes.

This 316, as the name implies, is powered by a 1573 cc four, and as there’s no “i” appended to the name, it’s plainly carbureted. In its European guise, this engine makes 89 horsepower, which affords a zero to sixty time of about 15 seconds. And that’s with the standard Getrag five-speed.

All that naturally makes this a privately imported car, something also made clear when slipping behind the wheel and discovering that the gauges are in metric measurements and all the controls are marked in German. Also, oddly, it lacks a tachometer; instead, offering a humungous clock in the instrument panel. Ach du lieber!

Despite the car’s age, likely sloth, and the Google Translate-demanding dash, there’s plenty to like here. There are only a claimed 76,870 miles on the clock, and the car mostly looks to be in excellent condition. The red paint pops, and all the chrome — including the always-destined-to-fail windshield and rear window trim — all appear bright and without issue. Handsome 13-inch steel wheels underpin and are fitted with what look to be new tires. This is a four-headlamp car, which is puzzling as the consensus is that the 316s all have two-lamp noses. BMW experts may be able to weigh in on that.

The interior is also in excellent shape, with one notable exception: the rear seat. It’s typical in older cars that the driver’s seat shows the most wear, then the passenger seat. Usually, the back seats, owing to lesser use, tend to survive the best. In this car’s case, something happened that resulted in the cloth upholstery on the front seats looking pristine while the back bench evidences multiple points of wear-through. It could have been that this car was in a collection or museum, and the rear seat got a daily dose of sun through a window. Or maybe a cat took up residence back there. Frustratingly, the seller doesn’t provide any background on the car at all.