When requested to call essentially the most lovely automotive on the planet, the reply at all times revolves across the identical contenders. Some favor the Jaguar E-Kind, whereas others think about the Mercedes 300SL Gullwing. Different vehicles that vie for the wonder crown embody the Aston Martin DB5, Ferrari 250 GTO, and the Lamborghini Miura. BMW is represented by this one, the 507. Whereas I favor the roadster with the hardtop, the open-air model is sort of as beautiful.
The 507 roadster is exceptionally uncommon, as BMW made solely 251 models. This wasn’t as a result of the corporate meant to restrict manufacturing. As an alternative of the initially projected $5,000 sticker worth, the automotive price round $9,000, making it obscenely costly. Later in its brief life cycle, the worth rose to $10,500. BMW had deliberate to promote about 5,000 models a 12 months, however pulled the plug after solely 251 have been constructed.
Despite the fact that celebrities like Elvis Presley, Hans Caught, and John Derek owned one, that wasn’t sufficient to steer rich clients to spend a lot on a luxurious grand tourer. The one we photographed this weekend on the 2025 Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este is on one other stage of exclusivity. It’s the one automotive painted yellow from the manufacturing unit.
Preliminary experiences said that BMW delivered the automotive in grey and that it was later resprayed yellow on the request of the proprietor’s spouse. Nonetheless, the German luxurious model is assured that the colourful coloration was how the automotive was initially ordered. A brief-lived product, the 507 was manufactured between 1956 and 1959 in Bavaria. Throughout the late Fifties and into the Sixties, rival Mercedes was producing the attractive 300 SL Roadster as a follow-up to the Gullwing coupe. You may think about the 507 had a tricky time competing.
It’s believed that BMW misplaced cash on each 507 it offered. Issues have been so dire that the two-seater convertible practically bankrupted the corporate because of its excessive manufacturing prices. Though a business failure on the time, these vehicles are value tens of millions in the present day. BMW estimates that roughly 100 examples have survived.
Right here’s what BMW says about why the 507 was an attractive failure:
“The issue was that the individuals who had the cash to purchase one have been nonetheless far too few in quantity, and clients in the important thing export market of the USA have been already spoiled for alternative when it got here to energy and displacement; even sober previous household vehicles had an eight-cylinder engine underneath the hood stateside.”
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