Smithology: I wish I could sell you my car

Dear Greyson,

May I call you Greyson? You gave no last name. There was only a phone number and a short written hello, this polite little missive in thick pencil. The scrap of paper was tucked under a windshield wiper, torn from a larger piece and folded neatly in half. 

The car sat a few hours from home, on the upper floor of a parking garage in a small southern city, looking no more grotty than usual.

Which is, as you know, still pretty grotty.

I thought it was a parking ticket at first. Cars like this don’t get many notes, you know? This one mostly sees dirty looks, or middle fingers, or headlights flashed in annoyance. Once, on a North Carolina interstate, some troglodyte in a Mercedes gave all three at once. Being the sort of person who believes in rigid adherence to rules regardless of circumstance or sense, I was at that moment of course trundling along at the 55-mph posted limit.

There was a fast downhill sweeper. There was a chance to safely pass that Mercedes in the left lane, on the outside.

As that tired old tach needle swung past four grand, I did what any reasonable person does while swimming in good, clean fun that doesn’t hurt anybody: I kept going. Who knows how fast? Forty miles per hour? A million? Mach numbers are for Yeagers. In the mirror, I saw the finger come out, the headlights on that Mercedes flash.

What a nincowpoop, as my hero once said. Much ado, crapcan nothing.

You offered to buy it! How kind! I have so many questions. Are you into old cars in general or BMWs in particular? Have you seen a 2002tii before? This one is a ’72, fuel-injected and early in that model run, 70th off the line for America. (Cue anal-retentive Concours Man Voice: Oh my, produced in the third week of Junetember, that was before they switched to cad-plated hardware on the flooglehousing, SO RARE AND SPECIAL.)

(It is not rare.)

(At least, not in that sense.)

I wish I could sell you my car. Such is the nature of the project that no explanation as to why I cannot, why I love it too much to do that, will make any sense. 

When your garage holds a smelly old pile of German steel . . . when that pile itself holds much questionable body repair and three distinct shades of filthy white paint . . . when you and your goon friends have over years laid hands or welder or torch on every inch . . . when oxide and time and maybe a saltwater flood have given that sheet metal more holes than a dozen donut shops . . .

Most of all, when you have spent a galactically stupid amount of money to bludgeon and Band-Aid back to life a zombiefied pile that, even today, is barely worth its value in parts . . . 

Well, some notions that do not make sense start to make sense, seem utterly vital and necessary, even if only to you. So you keep spending that money, mile after mile and month after month, keep buying and repairing bits. 

Maybe you convince your significant other that this whole pointless effort is important, that you Need it For Mental Health, but that sentiment is usually unspoken, because that person knows you so well, they don’t need to be told.

“You are building,” a friend once said, as I bolted some shiny new component into place, “a very nice parts car for someone else.” And then we laughed, because we each knew he was right, and that my children will likely inherit this pile and curse my name—it’s Sam, for the record—when I am gone. But that will be then and this is now, as they say, and it all sounds a lot like Dead Sam’s problem.

This didn’t seem like a big deal, once. That was before I had written thousands of words on it for my employer. Before I drove from Tennessee to California and back solely to enter a fancy car show as a joke. And before I hopped behind the wheel last Friday afternoon and drove from Knoxville, where I live, to Asheville, North Carolina, a few hours away, to meet a group of friends for the weekend.

At which point all that hard work and rust sat in a downtown parking garage for a few days. And you found it.

Before I left for North Carolina, I stopped for fuel. As I hung up the pump, an older man left the C-store and strolled over. He nodded at the hood badge. “This a 2002?”

“It is,” I said. “You know them?”

He used to run a body shop, he said, did a lot of crash repair. “Worked on a lot of these.” The words were friendly but unsentimental. A minute later, he asked the question I knew was coming. Because it always comes, when people walk up at gas stations, because the car looks like a project waiting to happen, not an end in itself.

“What are your plans for it?”

Love you are keeping it alive, you wrote. 

The Cliffs Notes are short. I am a car journalist by trade. I have owned several dozen old BMWs and more than a few 2002s. This one cost $1800 and had been sitting for ten years. It left the factory a pretty shade of blue, then weathered 48 years and two repaints in the Northeast.

Rust had eaten everything. The roof, trunk, hood, floors, and doors were burned through with holes. The rockers were gone. The inner fenders were Chernobyl. The steel box sections for the rear-subframe mounts were simply dust. The few bits of interior not missing were cracked open, shredded, or spattered with mold.

It was not the nastiest old car in the world.

Friends in the restoration business suggested a cutting-up for parts. Instead, there was welding, sloppy and quick, from those same friends and others, a gifted-labor group project that seemed to grow and rope in new people every day, equal parts pandemic time-burner and half-serious joke. The work began as experiment, to see how quickly a group of experienced folks could slam a DOA car back to life minus their standard workmanship and care. It ended as a reminder of how freeing it can be to meet something you love on your own terms.

Lotta jerks in this world, Greyson. Too many get their bloomers in a bunch at the thought of a person enjoying themselves in a manner they don’t endorse. 

Love you are keeping it alive. 

My friend, I suspect you are young. Your handwriting reminds me of my daughter’s. Moreover, your note sat under the windshield wiper with another piece of paper, a note in pen with tidy letters.

A parent? An older sibling? It wasn’t signed. Made me smile, though.

The 2002 was “finished” in Spring of 2021; the California trip was a few months later. We have gone many places since. What else do you do with a reliable, sorted little thing that tracks hands-free at highway speed and pulls strong at high rpm? Few machines I’ve owned have seen as many miles in as short a time, or made my clothing stink so much of oil. (Tired valve guides, smoking on overrun.) None have been more fun.

Just as perfect can be the enemy of good, so can good be the enemy of good enough. For a long time, I thought I knew what those words meant. Now I know a little more.

I almost texted you pictures of the resurrection, all that welding. Then I thought better of it. Shortly after this story is published, however, I will send you two things. A link to this page, for one. Then a line or two of thanks.

Like I said, we don’t get a lot of notes. Yours was the first. It made my day.

Your friend in rust,

Sam

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Sam Smith is an editor-at-large for Hagerty. His ’72 BMW 2002tii “Weissrat” has appeared previously on this site, including a seven-part feature series documenting the build.

If you’d like to read more, start here. The car can also be found on Instagram at @thatsamsmith and the hashtag #weissrat.