BMW 3.0 CS / CSL E9

The shape is Wilhelm Hofmeister's, carried over from his 2000CS with a longer nose grafted on to fit the new six-cylinder engine, and it introduced the detail that outlived every other part of the car: the kinked forward lean of the C-pillar, still called the Hofmeister kink on every BMW built since. Karmann built the unibody in Rheine to BMW's design, wrapping a low, glassy greenhouse and a long hood over the New Class mechanicals underneath. Chrome trim and slim bumpers define the pre-1974 cars; U.S.-market 1974 models gained the era's mandated 5mph impact bumpers, which the European cars never wore. The CSL's contribution to the design story runs the other way: its "Racing Kit" aerodynamics, a deep front air dam, black fender fins, and a tall roof-mounted wing, were function first and only became style afterward, once the CSL's nickname stuck. That same coupe body later became a canvas rather than just a shape, when BMW handed two 3.0 CSLs to artists for its Art Car program in 1975 and 1976, the E9's boldest design statement of all.

The CSL was the reason BMW built a dedicated motorsport arm in the first place. BMW Motorsport GmbH was founded in 1972 with the CSL homologation program as its first job, and under Jochen Neerpasch the car delivered almost immediately: Toine Hezemans won the 1973 European Touring Car Championship driving one, and Hezemans and Dieter Quester co-drove a 3.0 CSL to a class win at that year's 24 Hours of Le Mans. The 1973 aero package, developed with Alpina and nicknamed the Batmobile kit, made the car dominant, and CSL drivers took the European Touring Car Championship in every season from 1975 through 1979, six titles in total. In Group 5 form, the turbocharged 3.5 CSL won three rounds of the 1976 World Championship for Makes. The CSL crossed the Atlantic too, racing in the 1975 IMSA GT Championship with drivers including Brian Redman, Sam Posey, and Ronnie Peterson taking race wins, giving Porsche's IMSA GT programme a genuine fight for the first time in years.

The CSL earned its Batmobile nickname honestly, from a factory aero kit so extreme that period journalists reached for comic-book comparisons rather than technical language, and the name has stuck to the car harder than its own model number ever did. BMW leaned into that spectacle rather than away from it: in 1975 the sculptor Alexander Calder painted a 3.0 CSL entered at Le Mans, launching the BMW Art Car program, and Frank Stella followed in 1976 with a black and white grid pattern that turned the coupe's every curve into a diagram. Neither art car finished its race, but both did what BMW actually wanted, turning a touring car into a rolling exhibition piece years before "collaboration" was a marketing word. Among enthusiasts, the E9, and the CSL especially, occupies the odd space of being simultaneously a serious motorsport legend and a design object, recognizable to people who have never followed a single lap of European Touring Car racing but know the wing, the livery, and the name.

Rust is the honest headline. Karmann's coupe bodies were not built to the standard of BMW's own sedan plant, and unibody corrosion in the sills, floor pans, and rear suspension mounting points is common on unrestored cars; a bad one can look presentable from ten feet and be structurally compromised underneath. The other genuine weak spot is cooling. The factory fan was undersized for the M30 six even in period, and a car that runs hot in slow traffic risks warping the aluminum cylinder head against the iron block, since the two metals expand at different rates. Owners commonly fit an upgraded fan or an electric conversion, and it is worth confirming one is in place. Heating and factory air conditioning were never strong points either, and cabin ergonomics have a few period quirks, like a turn signal stalk on the right rather than the left, that surprise new owners more than they bother long-term ones. None of this is unusual for a car of its age. What it means in practice is simple: buy the straightest, driest body you can find, and treat everything else as ordinary maintenance.