On the face of it, it’s not hard to deduce why the BMW 2002 was a cool car in the first place. It’s a small, unpretentious, sport compact—a surefire starting point if there ever was one. It also comes from the ‘60s, a decade that brought us skinny ties, afros, and the Rolling Stones. One look at the 2002’s curves (and lack thereof), and you know you’re gazing at an automobile for guys with style and taste, not just cash.
Above all, it is undoubtedly, stealthily good. In his iconic 1968 review, Car and Driver’s David E. Davis Jr. waxed poetic about just how good it was, as Porsche and Triumph drivers alike suddenly found their driving prowess playing second fiddle to the Bimmer’s finely tuned agility. “The minute it starts moving,” he writes, “you know that Fangio and Moss and Tony Brooks and all those other big racing studs retired only because they feared that someday you'd have one of these, and when that day came, you'd be indomitable. They were right. You are indomitable.” The Bimmer sits at a rare intersection, both unpretentious and more than deserving of our praise. Its cool is effortless, in a way that million-horsepower supercars and rap-mogul limos can never quite manage.
Of course, you can also say that about every BMW since. So if the 2002 deserves singling out, it’s because it is protean: This is the car that put Bavarian Motor Works on the map as makers of practical yet fast driving machines, a covetable fiefdom of the automobile world it’s ruled with an iron fist ever since. The 2002 harkens back to the time when the Bavarians were plucky underdogs, before the marque became famous, and every mid-level pencil pusher barreled down the turnpike in their M3s.
Yet unlike the M series, the 2002 remains the under-appreciated one in the lineage. It's the considered choice. Maybe it’s because the diminutive little guy lacks the tuner-ific trim and racing heritage that the M series racks up in spades; it's more for the sophisticate than the Formula One crowd. Or maybe there really is something to the name, and the 2002’s esoteric moniker insulates it from the fetishists who revere the 3- and 5-series lines. It less like an enthusiast’s pet project and more like, y’know, a car. Even half a century on, you don’t have to go to a concourse competition to roll up in one. I see one in my Brooklyn neighborhood every day. It looks incredible. It still gets driven, even if it has trouble starting up half the time. It’s not a museum piece, and it never will be.
These days, though, a 2002 Turbo in good condition runs well over 30 large, quite a sum for a nearly 50-year-old sports compact with no Bluetooth or satellite navigation. Sooner or later, the remaining examples will become exponentially expensive and their inners so aged that their species will finally disappear from the roads. So the 2002 will finally die, but it will never get old. There’s nothing cooler than that.