Dragging My Dream BMW 2002tii Out of a Florida Field

Photo: Zach Bowman

For a foundational memory, my recollection of the first ride in my 1974 BMW 2002tii is pretty patchy. There are a few clear moments, though. I remember my brother’s crystal-blue eyes wide in the back seat as Philip pivoted the car in a dirt cul-de-sac with a quick, arcing drift. I remember the black Scheel-Mann seats and leather-wrapped Momo Monte Carlo steering wheel standing out against the tan door cards and carpet. And I remember the smell. The sweet musk of vinyl and horsehair that comes with every old German car, mixed with the whiff of mold that comes with every Florida car.

And I remember wanting the car with the kind of longing only an 11-year-old boy can muster. The need turned my stomach into a hard knot every time I saw a BMW 2002 in a magazine, or in a listing on Craigslist, or worse, in person. But financial realities and personal circumstances conspired to make owning a 2002 a pipe dream. They’ve always been just out of my reach, their values climbing in tantalizing proportion to my income. Affordable cars have always needed way more work than I am capable of; restored examples were always way out of reach. For 24 years, from that first ride in 1998, it felt like I’d always be longing. Eventually, I put the idea out of my mind.

But earlier this year, Philip, the family friend who gave my brother and me that fateful ride 25 years ago, said he’d trade me his 2002 – the 2002 – for my 1997 Ducati Monster. After all those years, the car that crystallized my love for automobiles, that taught me what a car can be beyond just an abstract array of pictures and spec sheet facts, was going to be mine.

The Car

Photo: Zach Bowman

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It’s a maroon 1974 BMW 2002tii that was parked in a barn not long after I rode in it, and stayed there until 2022. It was well loved before its hibernation, upgraded with Bilstein Sport shocks and H&R sport springs. It sits a little lower than the factory ride height and wears a set of 13-inch alloy wheels off a later model BMW 320i, added to clear a big brake kit. It also has a strut tower brace that was added sometime in the 1990s, and the aforementioned Momo wheel and sport seats. And, for a car that had been sitting since Clinton was in office, it’s remarkably solid.

It was originally Malaga red, a lovely dark shade of maroon that sets off the tan interior bits perfectly. But now the car is a color I have dubbed purplebrown, thanks to a cheapo repaint a long time ago. Whoever is to blame for the paint work half-assed the color mix and missed Malaga red by about as far as Spain is from Florida. It’s applied badly, peeling in spots, and dotted with patches of surface rust on almost every panel.

Photo: Zach Bowman

The car needs the usual litany of work demanded by any vehicle left to sit. The biggest hurdle is the fuel system. The gas tank was left half-full; what was once petrol is now something that smells like a cross between Minwax and turpentine. The inside of the tank wears a thick coat of fuzzy rust, and the pickup tube is clogged with stinky gunk.

The front brake calipers long ago welded themselves closed, and the pads rusted firmly to the rotors. The rear drums are in a similarly sorry state, with frozen wheel cylinders on both sides and ruined shoes. The soft brake lines, the brake hoses from the reservoir to the master cylinder, and the clutch slave cylinder will all need to be replaced before the car goes anywhere.

The BMW 2002tii

Photo: Zach Bowman

The BMW 2002tii is the sportier, fuel-injected version of the 2002, the car that helped BMW gain a foothold in the American market. The fuel injection system is a hilarious mechanical contraption, a sort of steampunk Rube Goldberg machine that fires fuel at more than 450 PSI at mechanical injectors in each intake runner.

Fuel metering is handled by a metal cone that rotates through 270 degrees in response to throttle position and engine speed. The cone dictates the height of a plate inside the pump, which in turn governs how much fuel is fed to a set of plungers that push gas to the injectors.

Photo: Zach Bowman

Somehow, this ridiculous device, known by its brand name Kugelfischer, was mass produced. Somehow, it meters fuel accurately and reliably enough that the 2002tii was good for 130 horsepower, about 30 more than the standard carbureted 2002. The tii also got bigger brakes than the standard car, boxed rear control arms, better dampers, and a half-point higher compression, at 9.5:1.

The base 2002 came to these shores in 1968, and immediately won praise from automotive journalists and a cult following from people who didn’t want a massive domestic car. Without the 2002, there would be no 3-series. And without the 2002tii, there arguably would be no M3.

It’s Mine

Photo: Zach Bowman

Florida summer afternoons are all the same: The screech of a million insects is the soundtrack to being suffocated under a damp weighted blanket of heat and humidity. Being outside is tolerable only in short bursts until it rains. When it rains, the superheated ground vaporizes the drops and suddenly another weighted blanket lands on you and things get really bleak.

The afternoon I was reunited with my 2002tii was out of Florida central casting – near enough to 100 degrees with equal humidity – but that day, I didn’t care. In the back field of a farm I had visited thousands of times as a kid, the car sat nose low on a dirty concrete pad.

Green and gray lichen, sand, and mold made the little brownish car appear fuzzy, and a dead-flat Dunlop as old as Nirvana’s last record gave it a sad tilt. The remnants of generations of insects dangled from long-abandoned spider webs all over the interior and in the filthy engine bay. But cracking the driver’s door, the smell, as unmistakable and as clear as it was 25 years ago, came rushing back. This wasn’t just a barn-find 2002tii, this was my 2002tii. Even if I had to wait a quarter of a century to call it mine.

What’s Next?

Photo: Zach Bowman

The car is in excellent shape considering how long it sat, and how awful the fuel tank looked. After I picked up the car, I took a pit stop in Knoxville, Tennessee on the way back to my place in Virginia. With the help of two friends and a few trips to the parts store, I was able to get the car to fire and run for a few seconds. After two and a half decades asleep, my BMW came to life without protest. It’s going to take a lot more effort to get it running and driving reliably, but after all that time, I can look that dazed little kid in the face and say, “you did it.” Pinch me.

Aaron Richardson is a recovering newspaper editor living in Staunton, Virginia. He is currently the executive editor of online side-by-side magazine UTV Driver, and a former contributor to Motorcyclist, Autoblog, and many others. When he isn’t writing, his ‘74 BMW 2002tii, half-dozen motorcycles and 1990 Ford F-150 keep him busy.