BMW 3.0CS a Gas Station and an iPhone…

After diving into bed a few days ago, I practiced my nightly ritual of checking emails on a smart phone before shutting down for the day. Out of the five email previews the phones screen displays at first glance into my inbox, a subject line titled “72 BMW 3.0CS” appeared with an attachment icon next to it at the bottom of the list. The message was sent from a good friend.


Naturally, I would have opened each email starting at the top of the screen, scrolling my way down. But that title, reeled me in. Skipping over the other emails, then plunging right to it. What started out as a normal email between three people, ended up as a thread of a thirteen email conversation, back to back about this car, in a matter of an hour.

Subsequently, here is how the story unfolded of the BMW 3.0CS, a gas station, and a friend with an iPhone:

A friend by the name of Karim spots this BMW 3.0CS at a gas station. Being a car addict and a photographer, he walks up to the owner of the Bimmer, strikes a conversation, and asks him if he could snap a couple of pictures using his iPhone (where is your DSLR dude?). He ends up emailing the pictures to me and to this other guy by the name of Ricardo.

Ricardo, replies to the email by saying: “Oh this car is amazing.”

Karim responded quickly: “The car is so clean, the owner was telling me how fast it was for a flat 6.” A few minutes later, he explained how ended up behind the CS after leaving the gas station.

He went on to explain: “Then he [the owner of the 3.0CS] got ahead of me before I got on the freeway.” He added “let me tell you, he was going fast, switching lanes and passing cars… his exhaust smelled so I stayed away.”

I replied, “even a 40 year old Bimmer can be driven fast confidently… All old cars stink, like this 70’s 911 I saw today”. Something you’ll notice if you’re stuck following from behind. That early 70’s 911 exhaust did stink, as most cars from that era.

Karim replied by saying: “I did [follow the 3.0CS], until I saw him doing edgy maneuvers then I decided to stay back but kept an eye on him. He then made an exit and that’s when I took the last shot.”


He then added “I reckoned he was going 90+ mph”…”Look at this 40 year old car outpacing everyone… man, I was smiling! Kind of a funny scene. This car was making a statement.”

Ricardo replies to Karim’s message, directing his conversation to me: “seriously, I think it’s a great story for bimmertimes, and those pictures are so nice”.

At this point, I was working on a side project that was consuming most of my time the week that this email was floating around. So the pressure was on to at least share this story and images with everyone on here. So here it is, the story of this 3.0CS, a friend with an iPhone, and some random gas station..

Then I remembered seeing a similar looking CS or CSi in Santa Monica over a year ago. Quickly, I rushed to the search bar on BIMMERTIMES to look up this very old post that included pictures from the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica, California. Turns out that was a different car, with different plates. The 3.0CS lives on in silver.
Pictures of the second BMW CS are here.

As a side note, isn’t it ironic how history repeats itself? …Even in the automotive world. Similarly to the recent change from the “normal” fuel injection, to the more-powerful extra fuel-efficient direct injection on the BMW E92 325i Coupe (and the whole inline 6-cylinder family). The BMW E9 3.0CS eventually ditched the carburetor for an early fuel injection system which paved the road for saving on fuel consumption, and boosted power output back in the 70s.

Going back to the email conversation… I replied to Karim saying that “I’ll post it and include the comments from these emails.” Then went on to say “That would be interesting way to share it with people.”

By that time, Karim told me ” just make sure you blur out his license plate”. Oops , just realized that I forgot to do that on the first CS I shot pictures of over a year ago. Until the next sighting, enjoy, comment, and please share…

 

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