Two years ago we featured a BMW E9 – one of the ViaRETRO team’s favourite cars; certainly one of mine – one of my big classic car regrets is selling the 3.0CSi that I ran in the mid to late 1990’s – in our Prime Find slot, principally because it was a garage find that was originally estimated at £13,000 to £17,000 by the auctioneers, thus bringing it under our theoretical £20k ceiling. In the event, it was switched to no reserve and ended up being sold for £48,160 after quite a bidding war – this for a car that was still going to need some money spending on it to bring it up to scratch.
That example was a 3.0CSi; this time we’re looking at its slightly less powerful – and slightly less desirable, if the classic car market is any guide – sibling, a 3.0CS which comes up for auction as part of RM Sotheby’s online “Open Roads” auction that runs from December 1st to the 8th, whereby lots from around the world are offered from their home location and can be bought and sold in a variety of currencies.
The background to the E9 was fairly extensively covered in our Prime Find piece here, so rather than repeat it all now, you can check it out there, if it’s not already known to you, although being a knowledgeable ViaRETRO reader, I’m pretty sure it is. What is in no doubt – to me, anyway – is that the E9, regardless of engine, is one of BMW’s most beautiful cars, gorgeous from every angle, but especially in pillarless profile. It’s a design that combines elegance with subtle aggression, one that proclaims its abilities as a purposeful, sporting yet practical, four-seater Grand Tourer, without shouting about it.
The E9 superseded the 2000C and 2000CS coupés in 1968. Superficially, there is visually little to distinguish a 2800CS, 3.0CS and 3.0CSi, even the lightweight CSL, from one another. In profile, they look very similar, and it’s really only in details such as the wheel spats (CSL) and…that’s about it. The difference in engines and performance are also relatively minor (even for the CSL), interiors are also largely very similar. Towards the end of the model’s life, a 2500CS was introduced as a response to the oil crisis, but only 874 were built.
And yet…as classics, there is a clear hierarchy, reflected in the average prices each of these BMW’s fetch. CSL’s passed the six-figure barrier some time ago, and £140-150k is not unusual. This is two to three times what a CSi generally costs, yet other than aluminium doors, bonnet and boot lids and more basic interior trim (in Germany, at least – UK cars were equipped pretty much as per the CSi) there is little difference. Both are propelled by 200 horses and have similar top speeds, though this changed when the CSL’s engine was increased to 3,153cc in 1973.
The carburettor-engined 2800CS and 3.0CS produced 168bhp and 180bhp respectively, so were unsurprisingly not as quick, but in terms of day-to-day driving, most of us would be perfectly happy with either, with the added bonus that they are usually a little less expensive to buy than the CSi. On top of that, they’re more or less indistinguishable from the rest of the E9 range except for the CSL.
Our Prime Find 3.0CS is located in Chobham in South East England, and most interestingly, it’s one of the lots in this auction that carries no reserve. This can either result in a bargain or as sometimes happens when there’s no reserve, some over-excited bidding. It isn’t perfect, so maybe there’s a bargain E9 to be had, despite the estimate range being £35-45k…let’s take a closer look.
It’s had a fair amount of recent work done, including a respray in Fjord Blue – a great colour, although not it’s original shade, which was Polaris Silver – done in 2018 and while the car looks externally very smart, opening the bonnet reveals some cracked silver paint, so the respray was clearly not comprehensive. The front blue leather seats were reupholstered a year later; they look excellent, but unfortunately they show up the worn – but still perfectly serviceable – rear seats.
Based on the photos that we’ve borrowed from the auctioneers’ website, the chrome look good, as do the wheels, my favourite wheels for these cars – “turbine alloys” – which if the odometer is correct, have only covered 41,425 miles, so this E9 hasn’t been worked very hard. The dash is also generally good although the area around the ventilation inlets is somewhat scruffy.
It’s a US import, which means it comes with the unsightly additional side indicators front and rear, but it also means it has air conditioning (not standard in European-spec versions). The gearbox is the standard 4-speed manual, and the car also comes with service documentation and what looks like an almost complete boot-lid mounted tool kit.
So close examination of this E9 does reveal a few shortcomings, but it depends on what the eventual buyer wants to do with it – it looks a perfectly useable car as it is and the new owner will not need to be scared of driving it or showing it off at events, even if it isn’t concours. 30,546 E9’s were built in total, of which 8,122 were 3.0CS’s and CSA’s, and with only 26 still on the road in the UK, the new owner won’t come across too many on his or her travels.
You can see the full lot entry here, and while we always recommend arranging prior inspection ahead of bidding, if possible, this is purely an online auction, so this time that option is not available. It will be interesting to see how this no-reserve E9 performs; realistically, the odds on it staying below our usual budget are low – it’s an externally very nice car, in need of only a little work to bring it up to show condition if that’s the goal, but meanwhile can be driven, enjoyed and showed off as it is for quite some time.
With our Saturday instalment of Prime Find of the Week, we’re offering our services to the classic car community, by passing on our favourite classic car for sale from the week that passed. This top-tip might help a first-time-buyer to own his first classic, or it could even be the perfect motivation for a multiple-classic-car-owner to expand his garage with something different. We’ll let us be inspired by anything from a cheap project to a stunning concours exotic, and hope that you will do the same.
Just remember – Any Classic is Better than No Classic! We obviously invite our readers to help prospective buyers with your views and maybe even experiences of any given model we feature. Further to that, if you stumble across a classic which you feel we ought to feature as Prime Find of the Week, then please send us a link to primefindoftheweek@viaretr