Who doesn’t like to remember the BMW E9, which was produced between December 1968 and December 1975 and found its way into many children’s rooms at least as a model car and wishful thinking for the future? Today, the elegant coupé, produced by Karmann in the Rheine plant, is a favorite classic car for many. You can cherish it, take care of it, cherish it – or go on a trip with it. The latter applies to a magnificent specimen produced in 1974, which has been sustainably refreshed in our engine. It takes part in vintage road trips and rallies, tours through neighboring European countries. With a fuel consumption that does not correspond at all to the large-volume six-cylinder in-line engine. Possible motto: cleanly adjusted, the 3.0 CSi – our first project under the brand of the national colors blue and white, which in 1917 were incorporated into the trademark of the Bavarian Motor Works, BMW for short.
The BMW 3.0 CSi caused a sensation in the first half of the 1970s. In addition to 30,546 production cars from the E9 model series, it was above all the sports and racing versions that shaped the image of the Munich automobile brand. Burkhard Bovensiepen was one of those players who decisively influenced the era of the six-cylinder coupe. The busy wine lover from Buchloe in the Allgäu was a tuner and racing team owner in one person, the Alpina brand created by Bovensiepen is still a global concept of quality today. The previous US owner of a model delivered in 1974, which passed to the current owner’s inventory two years ago, knew this too. He had already made provisions and found a suitable pool of spare parts long before he bought his favorite vintage car. In two garages, a private collector had brought together pretty much everything that could be useful in an E9, for example a six-cylinder in-line engine from the first 6 series (E24). The 3.5-liter intake manifold injector from the 635 CSi was also used in the 3.0 CSi at an earlier development stage with 218 hp and was therefore legitimate to provide acceleration in the older E9 type as well.
However, anyone who now believes that the increase in cubic capacity and horsepower yield will lead to an escalation in oil and petrol consumption is wrong. The piece of automotive history restored in the United States uses less than eleven liters of fuel. In order to achieve this value, the ignition cables, the ignition coil and the distributor cap have been replaced in addition to a clean basic setting. In addition, the air conditioning had to be renewed in order to keep the energy balance in balance.
