February Car In The Room - II
by Dennis Whimp
Terry Fitzpatrick’s 1973 BMW 2002 Tii The bright red two door 1973 BMW has been a familiar sight at branch runs for many a year, so it was great to have Terry Fitzpatrick explain the history of the BMW company and of this particular model. Back in 1973 Terry had delivered to him a new built to order Ford Falcon GT which was his family runabout vehicle. Eight years later he saw the BMW with 60,000 miles on the clock available in a Rotorua private sale. A deal was done with the Falcon gone and the BMW his. Terry’s opinion was that compared to the Ford, the BMW was a far better car (a few Ford fans were heard disagreeing with this). It was used as the everyday vehicle for the next 30 years, and then he and Sandra joined the RVVCC with this as their vehicle. It has now done 180,000 miles. The car is still in pristine condition. A small incident quite a few years ago (not Terry’s fault) resulted in the outside of the car being repainted. The engine bay is still the original paint with all the stickers still there like new. The engine head has been off and new valve guides installed, but apart from that it is just a reliable sound vehicle. The BMW 2002 was made between 1971 and 1975. According to the BMW club, 28 came to New Zealand. Only 10 were the fuel injected 130hp 2002Tii top speed 115mph of which Terry’s is one. Ross Jensen imported two twin carb 120hp 2002 Ti cars to race and cleaned out the Lotus Cortina’s that had been winning up until then. One of our ex members, Jack Miller was Ross Jensen’s mechanic on these cars and used to tell some interesting stories. 6
Side Curtains February 2022
