It has been known as the best automotive overview 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 12 months 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 era of automotive fanatics.
A 12 months earlier, the journal had declared BMW’s 1600-2 “one of the best $2,500 sedan Automotive and Driver ever examined.” With the bigger and extra highly effective 2.0-liter engine, the 2002 turned, 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 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 Struggle II, and just a few have been imported by personal prospects. In the course of the Occupation, American service members found sporty BMWs just like the 328 and 327, however they didn’t carry sufficient of those automobiles dwelling to make a lot of an influence. BMW’s postwar product technique didn’t improve the marque’s visibility through the Nineteen 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 another 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 bought simply 1,253 automobiles in america.
All of that modified with the launch of the Kind 114 (because it was identified internally). Thanks partly to Automotive 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. Apparently, 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 Automotive and Driver, that every one started to alter. As one of many “Massive Three” automotive publications, together with Highway & Observe and Motor Pattern, Automotive and Driver had round a million subscribers and unimaginable energy to affect readers—lots of whom have been probably tiring of the large American muscle automobile phenomenon.
However it wasn’t simply the standard of Davis’s insights that made the overview legendary. It was the best way his prose transported readers to a time, a spot, and a mind-set.
To present you an thought of the facility of this overview: it was this piece that finally 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 after 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 overview. Listed below are a number of excerpts so that you can choose for your self:
As I sit right here, recent from the elegant embrace of BMW’s new 2002, it happens to me that one thing between 9 and ten million People are going to make a horrible mistake this 12 months.
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 concerning the BMW 2002, and I believe fanatics will purchase as many as these pink-cheeked Bavarians of their leather-based pants and mountain-climbing sneakers wish 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 dimension 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. Straightforward. 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 shifting, you realize that Fangio and Moss and Tony Brooks and all these different large racing studs retired solely as a result of the scary that sometime you’d have one in all 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 one in all America’s best and most influential automotive journalists. Mockingly, it additionally received him fired from Automotive and Driver, due to his grievance that the 2002’s radio—made by Automotive 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 Automotive and Driver in 1976, this time as editor-in-chief. In that position, he wrote much more favorable evaluations of BMW cars and moved Automotive and Driver headquarters from New York Metropolis to Ann Arbor, Michigan. There, Davis petitioned the 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 fanatics.
You may learn your complete unique overview right here. And for a full retrospective on David E. Davis (who handed away in 2011) head over to Automotive & Driver.