That’s
the exciting new BMW 2800 CS Jerry Sloniger tested for WHEELS. He regards it as
right at the top, a superlative sportster, if expensive.
(Wheels,
October 1969. By Jerry Sloniger.)
A
BMW 2800 CS is either the silkiest big sports car swinger I know ... or the
meanest 2+2 luxury GT coupe going. Or both. Particularly both.
This
admittedly Teutonic-type package contains $6000 worth of dynamite in a velvet
glove. It’s certain membership in the exclusive 125 mph club – yet the dues
are a modest 17 mpg. It’s zero to 60 in less than nine seconds – without
forgetting 20 to 125 all in fourth gear.
Slashing
through, past and around mundane traffic proles like a bludgeon with fine-honed
edge, the 2800 CS engine purrs so quietly for all its power you could forget the
shift into top. After all, gear two can get you a ticket in any city and three
will push 3000 lb. Of sybaritic style over the ton without touching a red line.
Say
the big BMW coupe is an automobile of superlatives and you’ve said almost all.
Such statistics are beyond faulting, even though the buyer with sufficient
scratch to live happily forevermore in BMW-land must still overlook small
niggles. Mostly of a body kind.
Karmann
(body builder to German motordom with a real Charles Atlas complex) had a
problem, of course. Pillarless hardtops seldom want to stay rigid. The 2800 CS
does that part fine – at the expense of vast doors so heavy it takes two
doormen to extract you, even though they open to nearly 90 degrees.
Then
the door windows won’t roll clear out of sight. And it is probably impossible
to build a glass-to-glass joint which doesn’t whistle, even if it does seal
properly. Knobs for the wind wings require two strong hands each, but are sited
where only a couple of fingers can pertain. (For some reason, BMW provides a car
of this class with electric rear quarter panes but electric main windows are an
extra.)
The
elegant and readable dash with round tach and speedo (shamelessly fast: 10
percent at 100 mph) leaves most other functions to may-be-lights. It is flanked
by a small-items shelf with dividers to prevent slithering about and the console
bin has non-skid strips too. But the two drop-down glove bins came on all sticky
and two-handed to open. Carpets snap into place but the driver’s still fouled
his pedals.
Things
like that could blow the mind if it were your own six grand (price including
optional sliding roof) on the line.
Finally,
the moment comes to climb in and apply the symmetrical, universal programmed
key-like lock opener to its slot – once you get it to work the heavy door
locks, that is. You’ve completed a walk-around noting matt grill and dinky
side vents which a six-cylinder BMW sedan doesn’t have; the standard rear fog
lamp and nearly-invisible heating wires in the rear window; the alloy wheels and
the fact that only two can really go first class in this package.
Fire
up, slot first, and nothing else matters.
The
piston engine still lives – provided it’s made by BMW. Who needs rotaries,
turbines or refrigerated steam? They couldn’t be any smoother than this
seven-bearing, single OHC six and certainly wouldn’t put out its muscle. This
engine produces 170 DIN hp so easily it’s indecent.
The
husky torque peak (173.6 lb/ft) comes at 3700 rpm but the band is flat enough to
pull like a sports car from 2500 or less and pick up celanly from 1500. In part
this action comes from a bore of 86 mm and stroke (enlarged from their 2500) of
80 mm. Near-square engines generally come on strong and early. Some don’t like
to rev, but BMW side-stepped that in a car you shove over 6000 without noticing.
The
gear speeds work out to 35-65-100-125 and a classic 0-60=8.9 seconds. More
impressive, the CS goes from 0 to 100 in 24 sec. Again most impressive, it will
pull from 25 to 100 in top in just over half a minute.
And
this is a 3045 lb car at the kerb – yet so like a missile-launching when you
step down I had to look up the weight twice to be convinced.
All
this power – enough for only a couple of gears if you were lazy – is fed
through a ZF gearbox with stubby lever that cries to be used for the fun of it.
Every notch falls in like closing the front door at Ford Knox and none of this
slippery-knife-in-butter-but-which-gear-do-I-have stuff.
With
one caution. This car wants to be driven. For instance, there is a small
resistance to overcome when moving the lever from the 3-4 plane left to the 1-2
side of the box. There is then a little larger resistance when going farther
left to the R plane (up past 1). Banging the lever across brutally will take you
right on past the forward gears.
The
large-diameter, thin-rim, leather-covered steering wheel with matt spokes (set a
touch high for my taste) is connected to boosted steering which it handles with
four turns lock to lock. On a compact 100in. Wheelbase, this gives U-turns under
35 feet and playfully easy town manoeuvres with just enough road feel left to
ignore gusty cross winds when cruising near 120.
More
to the point, it makes life easy when you are faced with linked S-bends, more
often than not full of perambulating peasants. A small break in the oncomers and
you are around one set on the outside, the next batch inside their tightening
radius and free without turning a hair: yours or theirs. No indecent exhaust
rap, no wild skids; simply gone.
Going
down one face of the Alps, we did finally manage to induce some brake fade
without loosing all our stopping at any time. Even then it only appeared because
I didn’t bother to shift down for hairpins. In five minutes, brakes were fine
again.
Hardly
a small car overall, it doesn’t feel bulky in tight places because you can see
all corners and are held by shoulder-hugger near-bucket seats. Even when the
shocks began to fade towards the end of our 1400 mile run to Italy and back, it
still handled rings around all but maybe one purebred, hard-riding sports-car
met each day.
Perhaps
this feeling is so strong because the effortless engine makes it unnecessary to
dive and fight for small holes. You wait regally for the sfae spots and sail
into the sunset unruffled.
Pushed
really hard – if you insist – it has mild initial understeer and rather more
sudden transition to a wild drift angle than you’d suspect. All BMWs seem to
appreciate cornering extravagantly – tail-out at the limits, held on throttle
alone.
Few
with the resources for buying a BMW CS to begin with would count pennies at the
petrol pump but that amazingly good 17.4 mpg (Imp) for a machine putting 100
miles into each hour along the freeways and run fully in the mountains does have
a meaning. You only get 12 imperial gallons to play with – a mistake when two
are interested in the modern version of the grand tour.
A
large, flat luggage compartment carries all the extras a pair needs to travel in
appropriate style.
Nubile
onlookers may not fall all over themselves drooling at the heavyset styling of a
BMW 2800 CS (it comes out strong as a car for matinee idols with one oscar
already on the shelf) but they couldn’t help admiring your casual competence
once underway. This coupe makes the most ham-footed driver among us look like
Fangio setting lap records on his least frenetic day.