Late '90s BMW Crossover Concepts...

 A couple of interesting concepts here from the 1990s that you might not expect from BMW, but showing once again that they were well abreast of current trends and design cues that would become prevalent towards the end of that decade. 

The first, below, is this strange high-roofline runabout / city-car that seems to be a mix of Fiat's controversial Multipla and the bubble Nissan Micra that both came along soon after. This concept also pre-dates the BMW MINI (and the 1-Series) that arrived at the turn of the millennium and was perhaps the fore-concept of BMW's small car range after becoming aware of buyers desires for high-end hatch-backs following Audi's A3. Either way, it shows BMW were having a go at that small-car big-interior vibe that has now become the basic staple of small car design.

The next, below, is a compact, convertible, sports-car, SUV. Yes, BMW are covering a lot of bases with their concepts around this time and maybe, with this beast, trying to wrap too many trendy cars into one package. The high-clearance quasi-off-road look makes sense with the success of the then recently released X5, but in my opinion giving a taste of what would come along many years later, with a plethora of smaller, sportier SUVs like the X1, X3 and of course the X4 and X6 grand lifted coupes. Interestingly, this concept has integrated 'wrap-around' wheel-arches like the odd Chrysler PT Prowler retro sports-car from the late 90s, though without the open-wheel stance. Was this to pass certain road-laws but still give the high-clearance look of a 4x4? Perhaps these were removable if you were throwing knobbly-tyres on and going off-road?? I guess we will never know.

E34 5 Series 'Countryman' Touring X-Over Lifestyle utility concept... with pop-out tent...what?!

Well, I really have now seen it all. This is something I never expected to see from BMW, given their sporty, driver-focused image, but here it is... The E34 5 Series Touring utility camping wagon! Not only is it lifted with bigger tyres and sports obligatory 4x4 style two-tone paint, but it even sports a 'pop-out' camper roof and folding tent! This idea was only ever adopted in one vehicle I know of and that was the truly ill-received Pontiac Aztec some 10 years later, with the tent thing actually being one of its saving graces! You heard it from Bavaria first.

The concept is of the early 1990's, which means it also pre-dates Audi's 'Allroad' Quattro and Volvo's V70 XC / Cross Country, both of which were released and saw quite a bit of niche popularity, not to mention Subaru's ever popular Forester that seem to still be seen all over. The Audi and Subaru of course had 4-wheel drive as standard and the Volvo has it as an option, whereas the BMW would have still only been rear-wheel drive.. Can't imagine this would have been too good on a muddy camp-site field! It certainly wouldn't appeal stylistically to the same sort of younger BMW driver's who drift round ploughing up fields for fun anyway and perhaps doesn't quite fit with the BMW ethos overall, so I can see why it was overlooked and never made it into production. X-Drive all-wheel drive only became a feature in this millennium, which would have suited this thing to a tee and may have even brought it into production, but with such a limited market maybe the world has moved on.

Personally, I love it! Maybe I will recreate one from my E46 Touring! I challenge someone to beat me to it!

This reminds me, I really must get on a 'camping' trip in the 318i wagon when the epidemic is over and camp in the car, which I've been planning to do for a while now. I thought I was the only one eccentric enough to have such an idea... but no, some design team at BMW had the same notion, only over 35 years ago!

E21 316: Rear Wheel Spacers + Arch Rolling Kit!

With the engine now back in fine fettle [we hope!], I couldn't wait to get back on-project and spend a bit on stance, so I've started with these 20mm spacers for the rear wheels. I'm not sure if it's an illusion of the E21 body-shape, but the rear wheels always look a bit tapered in from the front ones, so these spacers should primarily even up the front/rear track or even bring the back wheels a bit further out than the front, as it should look. They'll also help make my rather skinny 7J wheels look a bit fatter and get the arch-clearance a bit tighter - and, of course, will make fitting fatter wheels [which is going to have to happen at some point isn't it] easier in the future.

In fear of the spacers pushing the wheel out too far and causing the outside of the tyre to contact the wheel arch, I also bought a wheel-arch rolling kit. It's about £100 to have a pair of arches rolled professionally and, as mine is a work-in-progress and I'm not 100% on the setup I'll be using, I decided £97 for my own kit will definitely work out cheaper if I need to keep on rolling them out as I go lower and wider...

French made spacers are nicely machined, but billet steel and pretty heavy.

Deemed too wide for extra-long wheel-bolts, these babies have two sets of holes and bolt on to the hub by themselves.

Rear wheels slightly proud of front ones as they should be, but a slight loss of negative-camber.

E21 316: Melber Wheel Painting!

Thought I'd spruce up the ratty Melber alloys this week to try and get away from the touring-car look and back to the general stance car vibe by painting the rims in cream. Or beige really, Peugeot Panama Beige to be precise - I spotted a Mk2 Golf with the full wheels painted in it and it looked like a nice antiquey dark cream. It looks decidedly lighter on mine though, perhaps I should have gone for Antelope Beige after all.

The dish I have left in the dark metallic-grey for now, but as one has the paint polished off something will have to be done, maybe a matt dark-grey or just grey-primer, we'll see.

E21 316: Finally decided on wheels - period Cross-Wires

The gleaming new look of the respray was being let down a bit by the tiny 13x5 steel wheels, so I've been looking for some 15x7 in the right offset [~12mm] to make the car a bit more sure-footed in the twists and give it some real stance. I'd like to have got 8" or 9" wide on the rear, but I think 7 is the maximum for the E21 without arch modification. The question was which way to go with the rims?

First I had my heart set on banded-steel wheels for a ratty deep-dish look and to keep costs down. The stud-pattern is the same as early VW Golfs, so there are plenty of sets around, but the lowest offset I could find was 33mm and that's just too big for an E21 without using spacers, which I am loathe to do without being ready to hack the arches yet. Having my own set made was the only option, but we'd now be talking around £500 and still finding 15" steels with a low enough offset is all but impossible. I even enquired about having the stock 13" steels banded to 7J, which is possible for about £200 unpainted, but they informed me that the band would be in the middle of these wheels, giving the width without the deep-dish look. Calamity! With all avenues now exhausted, it was time to look into alloys...

But what alloys? Modern ones look rubbish on classics and there's still the offset problem, so I found myself limited to ones designed specifically for the old BMW fit. Of the modern rims, ATS Euro Cup are probably the most retro friendly and have the lowest offset at 20mm, but the previous owner had these on my E21 and he says they still rubbed a fair bit. To guarantee a good fitment and do justice to the look of the car I began looking for period alloys from the late '70s and early '80s. The choice is a bit limited and seemed to come down to between the Alpina style multi-spokes, which are done to death, or BBS style cross-wires, so I chose the latter. An original set of BBS in the E21 fitment could be thousands, but thankfully there were several companies at the time making decent one-piecers in a similar style, which are a bit easier to get hold of.

They're still thin on the ground though, so I've been scanning eBay for a couple of months and have finally got hold of a set of Melber light-weight 15x7 with the magic 12mm offset.These are proper German period items, well made and Melber have a good rep. in club-sport circles. Best of all they fit the retro-racer bill perfectly, but were still a bit more than I wanted to spend @ £275. They're well used too and don't include tyres either, but thats for the best as I want to stretch under-sized ones on myself and I'm just glad to finally put my massive wheel conundrum to bed...