No. Not the Saab 99 Turbo (1977). Nor the Porsche 911 Turbo (1974). But this iconic BMW 2002 Turbo was Europe's first turbocharged production car. General Motors was way ahead of them in 1962 with the Oldsmobile Jetfire (using the epic 'Turbo Rocket Fluid'!!!) but that one was discontinued after a year. Due to poor reliability.
BMW's 2002 Turbo wasn't that successful either with just 1,672 cars produced but BMW and automotive historians somehow always state this was due to the 1973 oil-crisis. It got a lot of bad publicity and criticism because of it's fuel-consumption. I can't imagine it using more fuel than the land-yachts driving in the US back then but hey: Europe was completely depending on imports for oil.
BMW 'just' slammed a KKK Turbocharger on an M10/M15 engine, decreased the compression to 6.9:1 and got 170hp and a whopping 240Nm of torque. And probably an immense turbo-lag in the process but I've never experienced it myself.
Furthermore bigger brakes were mounted of course. No drums on the back: This was the only 2002 featuring disk-brakes on all wheels. And the only one having a 5-speed (which was optional on the tii).
BMW used mirror writing to display it's name on the front, although this was optional. This way, everyone checking their rear-view mirror now and then, could notice exactly what was closing in on them. This feature was also heavily criticized for being too 'aggressive'.
You could have it in only two colors: Chamonix White or Polaris Silver. The one pictured here is a Minichamps 1/43. And, if you expand the pictures, this one is clearly been taken out of it's case for too long as it's quite dusty. I really need to start cleaning them before taking pictures, excuse me.
The details are Minichamps-worthy. Just look at all the badges, even the wheels' center-caps come with the BMW-logo. On the front wheels that is. I'm not sure what happened to the ones on the back, can't imagine they got missing in my hands/house.
Just look at that side-mirror. I recognize this one as a proper 2002 (as some of you may know I own a 2002 Touring in 1:1 scale) mirror! And that door handle as well.
That's it for this Teutonic Tuesday as you all probably know this truly epic car already. Let's just hope more German goodies are displayed today. Ich wünsche euch allen einen schönen Deutschland Dienstag!