FWD e21

[Bill in MN]

Hey guys, it's been a while since I've swung this direction but something popped up that I figured you guys across the pond could shed some light on.

Has anyone ever seen/heard of such a thing? The concensus over here is that it's bogus. The seller claims otherwise.

http://sacramento.craigslist.org/cto/2540837458.html

[e21-Mark]

I would be surprised if it was factory. BMW made a big thing of drivers cars being RWD and it's not as if there were any other FWD BMW's before or since. Apart from the Mini of course. Who knows though?

[pic]

I think it was a fake. Doesn't have enough place for the transmission in the e21's engine loom.
Sorry, my english was not the best i think.

[Jeroen]

Even BMW has known some rough times, but never that bad that they'd consider building inferior stuff VW, Audi or Honda style. They did consider selling out to Mercedes but that was many years before inventing the E21.

[E21meister]

Even BMW has known some rough times, but never that bad that they'd consider building inferior stuff VW, Audi or Honda style. They did consider selling out to Mercedes but that was many years before inventing the E21.

Mercedes bought Auto Union instead, kept the Horch marque, flogged the rest to VW who then resurrected Audi and used the four rings as their badge (who then much later bought Horch from Merc in exchange for the rights to the name 'Silver Arrows'). My spidey-sense tells me this E21 is an owner-built 'phantom', but there is that niggly urban myth of a FWD mule being built in the 70's, on a modded 02 floorpan, with a body that looked like a cross between a Porsche FLA (google it) and a garden shed. And as the M8 prototype resurfaced last year, despite BMW claiming it was destroyed, who knows what lives under the Four Cylinder Building? Would love to run the VIN no. past the database.
As an aside, there will be a FWD BMW 2-series in the next few years, whether we like it of not.