The Glas BMW 3000 F should have been put into production

BMW is mostly known for making small coupes and sedans, little sports cars that were more about nippy handling and quirky styling. It’s not a brand known for big, pretty coupes, even though it has made several over the years. However, there’s one it absolutely had the chance to make, should have made and technically wasn’t even a BMW. It was called the BMW 3000 F and it was stunning.

Back in the ’60s, the Bavarians acquired another German automaker, a much smaller one, named Glas. After the acquisition, BMW had the rights and the tooling to make several of its sporty, very good looking coupes and sell them as BMWs. One such car ended up being the BMW 1600 GT, which was a stunning little coupe that was unlike anything else the Bavarians had made at the time. There was also the BMW 3000 F, which the brand showed off at the Paris Motor Show but never actually put into production.

It’s a shame that BMW kept the 3000 F from production because it was such a good looking car. With its traditional fastback styling, it looked more like a muscle car than a typical BMW. It was designed by the Italian design firm Frua and has a bit of Iso Griffo in its styling, which is ironic because the Iso Isetta was another car that BMW bought and sold. The 3000 F was unlike anything else BMW had made at the time, design-wise, and likely would have been a big hit in America, where that typical front-engine, two-door coupe was very popular. Especially considering it had a V8.

The BMW 3000 F was actually powered by a Glas-built 3.0 liter naturally-aspirated V8, it made about 160 PS (157 hp). That wasn’t even that much for a V8 back then but it was still cool. That V8 was mated to a four-speed manual gearbox and sent power to the rear wheels. No other BMW at the time offered two doors, eight cylinders and a manual gearbox, so it would have been unique.

This specific BMW 3000 F is going up for auction in a stunning blue-ish/silver paint with a lovely brown leather interior. It also only has around 65,000 km on the odometer, making it very fresh for a car from 1967. Considering only a few were made and it never made mass production, you could say this specific car is rather rare, hence the $300,000-plus price tag. For someone that has that sort of cash to burn and wants something special and rare, this could be it.

[Source: Gassmann]

The article The Glas BMW 3000 F should have been put into production appeared first on BMW BLOG