Original 02 interior/exterior combos?

[JohnP]

Did BMW mix it up? I ask because my '72 Taiga tii had a black interior originally but I saw a pic of an unrestored 'roundie in Taiga ( I think also a '72) that had a brown interior. Just curious, thx.

[Delia]

The short answer is yes.

Apparently, BMW outsourced the interiors/seating and if they ran out of the typical brown/black on the assembly line, black was a likely substitute.

The best way to tell if a car has had an interior change is by the color of the carpet. Salt/pepper for black interiors, brown for brown interiors.

Polaris, Fjord and Chamonix had blue, but I've heard there were some Fjord cars with factory black interiors -- no sure bets on that one either...

And that's just for the roundies.

There are some squaretail Inka cars with tan interiors rather than the more typical black, and then there's that grey (oyster) colored interior, so "mixing it up" was common.

D

[MikeWooldridge]

I found this color chart a long time ago. Too bad it doesn't give info as to what the numbers mean. Maybe someone can help fill in the blanks?

You need to use your zoom. The quality is poor, I know.

[02Les]

Here's a pic from BMW's Colour & Upholstery Combinations brochure dated Jan '72. These are the only combinations shown for the 2002 models. For the life of me I cannot make out the colour of 50/39 & 43/39 from the brochure - it looks black, but not as black as 88/92, so maybe it's supposed to be blue?

S numbers are cloth, and K numbers are vinyl/leatherette

The Taiga '73 I once had, had a black cloth interior.

[MikeWooldridge]

Great, Les. That is good info.

[JohnP]

Thanks all

[Bill_Riblett]

For the life of me I cannot make out the colour of 50/39 & 43/39 from the brochure - it looks black, but not as black as 88/92, so maybe it's supposed to be blue?

Yes, 50/39 and 43/39 are Blue - Marineblau.

[JohnP]

When I ordered my '72, the dealer shrugged his shoulders and suggested I take whatever came in or face a minimum 8-12 week wait, or longer. So I don't recall whether you could order a choice in interior with any given exterior color.

[John_in_VA]

The 3 digit numbers following the exterior colors are BMW's paint codes. The S and K numbers are their codes for cloth or vinyl material colors.

[Delia]

When I ordered my '72, the dealer shrugged his shoulders and suggested I take whatever came in or face a minimum 8-12 week wait, or longer. So I don't recall whether you could order a choice in interior with any given exterior color.

It's my understanding that during Max Hoffman's reign as North American Distributor there was no Detroit-like "ordering" of colors and/or special equipment. I suspect that the larger-volume dealers on the East/West Coasts had at least *some* influence and could get you the color combinations you wanted, but my "local" dealership in Lansing, Michigan (50 miles away) had very little influence with the importer. Color combinations, sunroof/non-sunroof, tii/car'b cars were catch-as-catch-can.

I believe the salesman's line about an 8-12 week "waiting period" was just "sales banter."

After visiting Germany in the Fall of 1974 and lusting after all the amazing cars available there, I visited the local dealership in December to find an Amazonasgrun car'b 2002 with sunroof (#4225509) on the dealer showroom floor. It was the last '74 they would receive and the lagging Dollar vs Deutchmark dictated that the '75s would be out of my price range.

I pulled the trigger on that one, taking delivery in February of 1975.

Regarding colors of foreign cars in the 60s and 70s...getting the color combination you wanted, or more precisely, "would-have-ordered" held a certain status among car-people of the day -- as in, "WOW, you got a BMW 2002tii with sunroof in Inka??? HOW'D YOU DO THAT??? THAT'S UNBELIEVABLE!!!" (We didn't say "amazing" back in those days.)

I got the same treatment about colors and interior combinations at the VW dealer in 1971 when I purchased my 1302..errr..Super Beetle. That one I also purchased rught off the showroom floor. It was "Clementine" orange.

Delia

[esty]

69...

73...

[JohnP]

When I ordered my '72, the dealer shrugged his shoulders and suggested I take whatever came in or face a minimum 8-12 week wait, or longer. So I don't recall whether you could order a choice in interior with any given exterior color.

It's my understanding that during Max Hoffman's reign as North American Distributor there was no Detroit-like "ordering" of colors and/or special equipment. I suspect that the larger-volume dealers on the East/West Coasts had at least *some* influence and could get you the color combinations you wanted, but my "local" dealership in Lansing, Michigan (50 miles away) had very little influence with the importer. Color combinations, sunroof/non-sunroof, tii/car'b cars were catch-as-catch-can.

I believe the salesman's line about an 8-12 week "waiting period" was just "sales banter."

After visiting Germany in the Fall of 1974 and lusting after all the amazing cars available there, I visited the local dealership in December to find an Amazonasgrun car'b 2002 with sunroof (#4225509) on the dealer showroom floor. It was the last '74 they would receive and the lagging Dollar vs Deutchmark dictated that the '75s would be out of my price range.

I pulled the trigger on that one, taking delivery in February of 1975.

Regarding colors of foreign cars in the 60s and 70s...getting the color combination you wanted, or more precisely, "would-have-ordered" held a certain status among car-people of the day -- as in, "WOW, you got a BMW 2002tii with sunroof in Inka??? HOW'D YOU DO THAT??? THAT'S UNBELIEVABLE!!!" (We didn't say "amazing" back in those days.)

I got the same treatment about colors and interior combinations at the VW dealer in 1971 when I purchased my 1302..errr..Super Beetle. That one I also purchased rught off the showroom floor. It was "Clementine" orange.

Delia

Hi Delia - I purchased mine from Bill Knauz, owner of Knauz Motors in Lake Forest, IL, a fairly affluent Chicago suburb but back then kind of a small operation selling BMW and Mercedes. So he may have fallen off Hoffman's radar. And I can remember discussions even then between Knauz and my father (who purchased a Bavaria, a tii and a Mercedes from Knauz) about the love/hate relationship between dealers and ultimately customers and Hoffman, the U.S. Czar pulling all the strings.

PS - In '72 it was 4 marks to the buck. I paid $4,500 for a carbed 02 with a Blaupunkt, a princely sum for a newly married 25 year old just out of the army making $9k a year. I couldn't justify the additional $700 for a tii. By '76 the currency exchange was getting closer to 2 marks to the buck and Hoffman also wanted to start getting a premium believing that BMW matched Mercedes value and prestige. By '76 a carbed 02, up on weight and down on power, was closer to $7k than $6k with a radio, a/c auto, etc. We all resented Hoffman for driving off the younger buyers like me who helped get BMW back in the US to begin with.