It has been known as the best automotive evaluate 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 yr was 1968, and the automobile Davis was testing wasn’t the insane Turbo and even the Tii. These fashions have 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 complete technology of automotive lovers.
A yr 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 grew to become, as Davis wrote, “most actually one of the best $2,850 sedan in the entire cotton-picking world.”
This highlight ultimately turned one of the vital obscure automotive manufacturers imported into the U.S. right into a family title. However on the time of publication, issues have been very totally different for BMW of North America (BMWNA). BMW hadn’t formally exported its automobiles to the U.S. previous to World Battle II, and just a few have been imported by non-public clients. In the course of the Occupation, American service members found sporty BMWs just like the 328 and 327, however they didn’t deliver sufficient of those automobiles residence to make a lot of an affect. BMW’s postwar product technique didn’t enhance the marque’s visibility in the course of 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 automobiles in america.
All of that modified with the launch of the Kind 114 (because it was recognized internally). Thanks partly to Automobile and Driver’s glowing evaluation of the 1600-2, BMW’s U.S. gross sales practically quadrupled in 1967, reaching a complete of 4,564 automobiles. Curiously, practically all of those have 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 challenge of Automobile and Driver, that every one started to alter. As one of many “Huge Three” automotive publications, together with Highway & Monitor and Motor Development, Automobile and Driver had round a million subscribers and unbelievable energy to affect readers—a lot of whom have been probably tiring of the large American muscle automobile phenomenon.
Nevertheless it wasn’t simply the standard of Davis’s insights that made the evaluate legendary. It was the best way his prose transported readers to a time, a spot, and a frame of mind.
To provide you an concept of the facility of this evaluate: it was this piece that in the end 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 once 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 evaluate. Listed here are a couple of excerpts so that you can choose for your self:
As I sit right here, contemporary 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 yr.
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 in regards to the BMW 2002, and I believe lovers will purchase as many as these pink-cheeked Bavarians of their leather-based pants and mountain-climbing footwear want 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 automobiles twice its measurement and 4 instances its value, however some ten thousand eager sorts will purchase them in 1968, so the bulk loses for as soon as.
Depress the clutch. Simple. 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 transferring, that Fangio and Moss and Tony Brooks and all these different massive racing studs retired solely as a result of the dreaded that sometime you’d have considered one of these, and when that day got here, you’d be indomitable. They have been proper. You’re indomitable.
David E Davis
As for David E. Davis Jr., “Flip Your Hymnals to 2002” cemented his popularity as considered one of America’s best and most influential automotive journalists. Mockingly, it additionally received him fired from Automobile and Driver, due to his criticism 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 position, he wrote much more favorable critiques of BMW vehicles and moved Automobile and Driver headquarters from New York Metropolis to Ann Arbor, Michigan. There, Davis petitioned town to renumber the journal’s new workplace constructing as 2002 Hogback Highway—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 lovers.
You may learn all the unique evaluate right here. And for a full retrospective on David E. Davis (who handed away in 2011) head over to Automobile & Driver.
BMW 2002 Photograph Gallery
