1972 2002tii Touring

Perfect timing, as in March of 74' Marilyn, Byron and I were in the final preparations for our first trip to Germany and the Club driving school at the Nurnburgring. Marilyn and I had decided to bring a 2002 touring back from Germany, but had no idea of how to get thru the various loops & loopholes to accomplish this.

As the Zundfolge editor, Byron and I used to meet at a local parts store, share lies and coffee, while I took the club mail he'd retrieved from our P.O. box. We both remember that I was driving a sunroof that memorable day, as the opened letter including a "for sale" ad destined for our Zundfolge, went flying out thru it. He doesn't remember me exiting my car, but does remember being pulled out of his thru the open window by me. I was blithering about something that was totally incomprehensible.... We went back into the parts store, where I used the phone to call the seller and lock-in the sale. Once back in Seattle, I set about modifying one of the area's most unusual Bimmers. I installed full instrumentation, M-steering wheel, sport 5-speed, alloy rims, sunroof, vented front brakes, and tried 8 combinations of springs and dampners before I was satisfied. I used to take her to S.I.R. a lot for testing. Shame on me, as this car wasn't meant for track duty. I expanded the fender tire clearance knowing it might damage the paint, which I could not match, so I didn't try. Instead, I matched the black of the waistband strip, and did the fender lips black. Combine that with the built-in fold-down back seats, which allow 2, 3, or 4 seat configuration, and you can see why we chose the vanity plate # O R U N V S. As street gas kept dropping in octane, and draining avgas from the plane just got to be too much bother, I figured it was time for a "preventative maintenance rebuild" and replaced the euro hi-compression pistons with street tii ones.

The car is approaching 400k miles and still wears the Bilsteins I installed in 74'. The paint is original from the windshield back. In the mid 70's I was stalked by at least one BMW salesman who threatened to ram me, taking the touring off the streets, as he was sick & tired of explaining to inquires about it, that he could not ever offer it.

One of our funniest "touring stories" involved the Norwest Porsche club and a Medic II fund raising rally. A local T.V. news crew was sent out to cover the event. Obviously, they didn't have a clue about sport cars, as they chose to feature the most unusual Porsche out of the 2-300 present. Yup, they interviewed Marilyn & me sitting in our touring, then followed us thru the event. They'd skip ahead and wait for us at the check-points. Knowing I'd be on camera, we'd come skidding in, and leave as conspicuously as possible. The feature was run during the otherwise dry and lacking Sunday evening local news. Our phone rang off the hook for days to the opinions of Porsche owners thinking we'd absconded with their thunder, to BMW members wondering how we could stoop to being in Porsche events..... go figure.