The Most Beautiful Car BMW Ever Built

There are vehicles that age gracefully, after which there are vehicles that merely refuse to age in any respect. The BMW 507 Roadster belongs to the rarest class of all: people who look, even in the present day, as if they have been designed tomorrow. As 2026 marks the seventieth anniversary of the 507’s start, it’s price pausing — actually pausing — to know what this automotive was, what it value the corporate that constructed it, and why, seven a long time later, it nonetheless makes the jaw drop and the heartbeat quicken in equal measure.

A Determined Gamble on American Goals

The story of the 507 begins not in Munich, however in New York Metropolis, within the workplaces of Max Hoffman — the legendary Austrian-born importer who had an uncommon sense for what American patrons needed from European vehicles. It was Hoffman who pushed Porsche to construct the Speedster. It was Hoffman who satisfied Mercedes to carry the 300SL to the US. And it was Hoffman who, someday round 1954, walked into BMW’s boardroom with a proposition that was equal elements imaginative and prescient and audacity.

BMW within the mid-Fifties was in a precarious place. The corporate had rebuilt itself from the rubble of postwar Germany, however its mannequin vary was awkwardly cut up between the ultra-luxurious and painfully costly 501/502 sedans and the tiny, impossibly cute Isetta microcar. There was nothing in between — and definitely nothing that would compete with the Mercedes-Benz 300SL, the automotive that was dazzling rich Individuals and dominating the cultural dialog round European efficiency.

Hoffman’s pitch was elegant in its simplicity: construct a light-weight, open-top sports activities automotive powered by BMW’s new aluminum V8 engine. Worth it at round $5,000. Promote it to Individuals. He personally dedicated to buying 1,000 models.

BMW mentioned sure. And in doing so, it set in movement probably the most stunning — and finally most financially ruinous — chapters in automotive historical past.

The Man Who Drew an Icon

To design the brand new automotive, BMW turned to Albrecht Goertz — a German-born, American-trained industrial designer who had studied underneath the nice Raymond Loewy. Goertz was not a profession automotive designer by coaching, which might be precisely why his answer was so recent, so unencumbered by conference.

Working with pencil and paper and a deep intuition for proportion, Goertz penned a physique of breathtaking restraint. The place the 300SL was dramatic and gull-winged and theatrical, the 507 was serene. It was a research in lengthy, low horizontals — a hood that stretched ahead with quiet authority, a windscreen that curved gently again, flanks that swept in a single, unbroken arc from entrance wheel arch to tail. The kidney grille — BMW’s signature — was current however built-in so organically into the nostril that it appeared to have grown there naturally slightly than been grafted on.

The physique was hand-formed in aluminum, giving the automotive a lightness each literal and visible. In pictures, the 507 virtually appears to hover. Within the steel, it glows.

Goertz accomplished the design with outstanding velocity. BMW confirmed the automotive on the 1955 New York Motor Present, and the response was every thing Hoffman had promised. The press was rapturous. Orders poured in. The 507 was, with out query, probably the most talked-about new automotive on the planet.

The Engine That Roared

Beneath that sinuous aluminum pores and skin beat a coronary heart worthy of the physique that surrounded it. The 507’s engine was BMW’s all-aluminum 3.2-liter V8 — a unit that had debuted within the 502 sedan however was right here tuned and breathed-on to provide someplace within the area of 150 horsepower in customary kind, with some examples pushing significantly larger in additional aggressive specification.

In 1956, 150 horsepower in a automotive weighing round 1,330 kilograms was genuinely severe efficiency. The 507 may attain 0-100 km/h in roughly 11 seconds — fast for the period, however the headline determine was at all times the highest velocity, which BMW claimed at over 220 km/h (round 137 mph). Whether or not each instance genuinely reached that quantity is a matter of spirited debate amongst historians, however the level was made: this was an actual sports activities automotive, not a boulevard cruiser carrying sports activities automotive garments.

The soundtrack was a part of the expertise. The V8 had a low, cultured burble at idle that opened up into one thing altogether extra pressing underneath onerous acceleration. A four-speed handbook gearbox despatched energy to the rear wheels.

The Automobile That Practically Sank BMW

Right here is the place the story turns, as a result of the 507’s magnificence contained inside it the seeds of near-catastrophe.

The issue was value. BMW had assumed the 507 could possibly be manufactured at a worth that may permit it to retail at Hoffman’s goal of $5,000. That assumption turned out to be spectacularly, virtually fatally flawed.

The hand-crafted aluminum bodywork, constructed by the coachbuilding agency Baur in Stuttgart, was terribly labor-intensive. Each panel was formed by craftsmen working with hammers and wheeling machines and a long time of gathered talent. There was no technique to automate this course of, no technique to industrialize what was primarily a bespoke, artisanal operation.

The true value of producing every 507 was far past what BMW had deliberate. Moderately than retailing at $5,000, the automotive was priced in the US at round $9,000 to $10,000 — roughly double the unique goal, and dangerously near the territory of the Mercedes 300SL it was meant to undercut. Gross sales suffered accordingly. Hoffman, confronted with a automotive that value twice what he had imagined, by no means got here near fulfilling his dedication of 1,000 models.

In complete, between 1956 and 1959, BMW constructed simply 254 examples of the 507. On every one, BMW is believed to have misplaced cash. The automotive that was supposed to avoid wasting BMW’s premium credibility in America very practically put the corporate out of enterprise fully.

It was the small, humble Isetta — the microcar that appeared the 507’s comedian reverse — that really stored the lights on in Munich throughout these tough years.

Elvis, Rock and Roll, and a Repainted BMW

Amongst these 254 fortunate house owners, one stands above all others within the mythology of the 507: Elvis Presley.

When the King arrived in West Germany in 1958 to serve his navy posting with the US Military, he was already probably the most well-known human being on the planet. He bought a white BMW 507 — serial quantity 70079 — and it grew to become, throughout his posting, his fixed companion and his biggest civilian extravagance.

There’s a lesser-known postscript to Elvis’s 507, one which speaks to the actual form of fame that comes with being Elvis Aaron Presley. Feminine followers, apparently undeterred by the idea of personal property, would normally lipstick-kiss the white paint, leaving the automotive perpetually embellished within the traces of adoration. Elvis, in a call that was both pragmatic or philosophical relying in your interpretation, finally had the automotive repainted pink.

His 507 was rediscovered a long time later, restored to white, and returned to one thing approaching its unique glory. It was displayed publicly to appreciable fanfare — a bit of cultural historical past that transcended automotive amassing and touched one thing deeper within the standard creativeness.

Resurrection and Recognition

For a lot of the postwar interval, the 507 existed in a curious limbo. Collectors and historians knew it was important, knew it was stunning, knew it was uncommon. Nevertheless it hadn’t but achieved the stratospheric values — and the corresponding stratospheric profile — that may come later.

That modified in earnest because the basic automotive market matured by the Nineteen Eighties and Nineteen Nineties and the 507 started showing on the nice worldwide auctions. The numbers have been revelatory. By the point the market peaked within the mid-2010s, distinctive examples of the 507 have been fetching north of $2 million at public sale — with the very most interesting vehicles, these with documented histories and unique matching-numbers drivetrains, reaching significantly larger.

At present, a well-presented 507 is comfortably a multi-million-dollar car. The automotive that misplaced BMW cash on each construct has develop into probably the most useful manufacturing vehicles the corporate ever made.

What 70 Years Teaches Us

It’s tempting, at moments like this, to lapse into uncritical reverence. The 507 was a business failure. It practically destroyed the corporate that constructed it. By any rational enterprise metric, it was a catastrophe. And but.

And but it gave BMW one thing that can not be manufactured or engineered or budgeted: a soul. The 507 established, as soon as and for all, that BMW was not merely a maker of competent, dependable motorcars. It was an organization able to real magnificence — of labor that transcended perform and entered the realm of artwork.

Each BMW sports activities automotive that adopted — the three.0 CSL, the M1, the Z8, the i8 — carries some DNA from the 507. Each time a BMW designer reaches for that individual steadiness of restraint and drama, of aggression and class, they’re reaching again, consciously or not, to what Albrecht Goertz drew on these first sketching pads seven a long time in the past.

The 507 was a business disaster. It was additionally one of many biggest issues BMW ever did. Right here’s to the following seventy.