Pontiac Blue
Now apart from a few Silver Arrows, the BMW 507 is by far the most expensive German classic. We don’t know exactly why, but the roadster has been costing at least twice as much as a gullwing for years. It is said that Munich has a hand in keeping the prices very high – we are talking about over two million dollars, for years.
At the end of September, another BMW 507 was auctioned by Bonhams at the Audrain Concours in Newport, Rhode Island, USA. The car with the chassis number #70059, i.e. one of the second series, was sold including premium for 2,315,000 dollars. So a good price, but quite normal for a BMW 507.
Now #70059 is actually: a ruin. The car was sold in 1957 via the Venezuelan BMW importer Eduard Zingg to the American Lester Stubbins. Stubbins was an extraordinary personality, he earned a fortune from chewing gum machines, also owned a Mercedes 300 SL and a Ferrari 250 GT, drove to an astonishing 6th place in the 1959 24 Hours of Le Mans. He is said to have loved his BMW – yet he had the one delivered in silver-blue repainted to white. And brought it to Canada in 1961. Where it somehow ended up in the hands of a certain Jack Kroch from Ottawa. He painted #70059 in Pontiac Bright Blue Metallic.
In 1979 Kroch sold the BMW to Herman Bold, who together with his brother Gerhard collected 507s and parts, for $22,000. #70059 was transferred to Philadelphia – and stood there in a garage for 43 years. Although it was maintained there a little bit, even the engine was started now and then, this “blue” 507 was actually only set as a spare parts supplier, because the Bold brothers owned two other 507s (#70054 and #70228). Amazingly, after all these years, #70059 was able to drive itself out of the cave in which it had to spend more than four decades unused.
Well then, the ravages of time have already clearly gnawed at this 507. You can lovingly call it patina and try to preserve it (maybe including the smell?), but it will probably cost even a very clever restorer a few dolores to bring the BMW back to shape. And for that, 2.3 milliönchen as a base price is rather steep.
Yes, we have driven a BMW 507 before. And yes, we know the story well. And yes, we have one of our infamous collections about it. It’s all there: here (sorry, just in German…).
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