BMW 2002 born again

Fifty years after the debut of the original 2002, BMW’s designers have gone to town to deliver a hotshot modern version of the car that saved the brand.

With its four exhaust pipes growling menacingly, the 2002 Hommage made its debut at the Concorso d’Eleganza at Lake Como’s Villa d’Este overnight.

The 2002 is usually cited by BMW engineers, designers and finance people as one of the two best BMWs in history. The other, the 3.0-litre CSL, was given the Hommage treatment at last year’s Villa d’Este Concorso.

The 2002 Hommage is a very different animal to the CSL version. There are no thoughts, sadly, of a production version of the 2002 Hommage and nor are there hints about its surfacing or detailing ending up in a fast road-going BMW. It will remain a pure homage to the 1966 original.

Actually, BMW design boss Karim Habib admitted it’s really an homage to the 2002 Turbo, which wasn’t seen until 1972, but the gap years were disregarded because the Turbo’s wilder body design gave them some liberties.

BMW has up with a 2002 Hommage that is clearly based around the recently launched M2 Coupe, and is only a handful of millimetres longer and wider, while carrying over the production car’s glasshouse, powertrain and chassis architecture.

That means it uses the turbocharged in-line 3.0-litre six-cylinder engine, codenamed N55 B30T0, to give it 272kW of power, 465Nm of torque and a sprint to 100km/h in around 4.3 seconds.

But BMW isn’t talking officially about the 2002 Hommage’s rear-drive powertrain. Instead, it is trying to nod its cap to one of the most important cars in the company’s history.

It has focused instead on the blue, fat-tyred anniversary gift with the wide wheel-arches, the crazy-deep front splitter and the enormous air-intake openings.

“Exactly 50 years ago, the 02 range kick-started an era of success for BMW,” Adrian van Hooydonk, the Senior Vice-President of BMW Group Design, said.

“This compact coupe is one of the vehicles which made the brand what it is today.

“The 2002 sat at the top of the range and was the first series-produced car anywhere in Europe to come with turbo technology. That set the seal on the coupe as a genuine sports car.

“At the same time the 2002 turbo was at the technological vanguard of engine development at BMW. The BMW 2002 Hommage is our way of raising a glass to all these achievements.”

The result is a concept car that is all tiny overhangs, depth and aggression, with plenty of unashamed visual cues linking it to the original 2002 Turbo.

There is a toe-scrapingly deep front splitter, complete with an enormous air-intake for the engine flanked by another two for the brakes. Its grille carries the forward-leaning 'shark nose' styling of 1960s BMWs and there are even castellations on either side of the bonnet, along with a pronounced crease in the middle.

The most controversial part of its design is that the car abandons BMW’s ubiquitous quad-headlight front face, instead using the 2002’s single outboard round lights on each side. In a nod to the headlights of the period, the design team has also given each headlight a distinctly yellow tint.

Habib insisted the chrome strip that surrounded the original car’s entire body would not work on the 2002 Hommage, but the philosophy is still there. It has been replaced with a full-length carbon-fibre strip that also wraps around the bootlid and even dives behind the fat front wheel-arch and re-emerges to act as the indicator above the headlight.

Besides being an unabashed nod to the original 2002 Turbo’s prominent design feature, it also acts to break up the 2002 Hommage into two parts. The bottom half is painted in high-gloss Space Race Metal blue, while the top half has a matte finish, in a cap tip to the light- and heat-reflecting ideas of the 1960s and 1970s.

“The BMW 2002 is one of the most iconic models in BMW history for me,” said Habib.

“The design of the BMW 2002 Hommage employs a dynamic, striking use of forms to offer its own take on the sassy, almost-brash character of the 2002 turbo. As such, the Hommage car brings together the past and future of BMW into a confident statement of unadulterated driving joy.”

Its front and rear wheels bulge out even further than they do in the incandescently brilliant M2 Coupe, getting unique wheel-arches to accommodate the 20-inch alloy rims and tyres, and it’s also fitted with gold-painted M brake calipers.

There is no wild spoiler, like there was on the 3.0-litre CSL 'Batmobile' of the 1970s, because the 2002 works racers didn’t use them. The boot lid instead flips up to deliver downforce, while the M2’s quad tailpipes are unmistakable beneath its rear bumper.

BMW turned the corner as a company with the 2002, but the 2002 Turbo arrived in the teeth of the global oil crisis, and only 1672 of them were built from 1972.

It was one of the premier fast cars of its era, though, with a KKK turbocharger and mechanical fuel-injection helping it to 127kW of power at 5800rpm and lifting its torque to 240Nm. It was good for a seven-second sprint to 100km/h and topped out at 211km/h.

The 2002 Hommage follows a strong recent tradition of Hommage cars from BMW at the Villa d’Este Concorso, including last year’s CSL Hommage, the Vision Future Luxury concept in 2014 and the Grand Lusso Pininfarina collaboration in 2013.