Elvis Presley’s BMW 507. Photo’s courtesy BMW Classic.
In 1958, while stationed in the U.S. Army in Hesse, West Germany, Elvis Presley acquired a Feather White BMW 507 roadster. Following his return to the United States, the fate of the BMW remained something of a mystery, and when a car alleged to be Presley’s entered restoration in 2014, the absence of a paper trail conclusively linking the 507 to Elvis merely added to the controversy. Extensive research in the BMW archives has turned up that missing link, and fresh from a two-year restoration, the car now positively identified as The King’s BMW will make its public debut on August 21 at the 2016 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in Pebble Beach, California.
Miss Hessen, Uschi Siebert, hands the keys to Elvis Presley at delivery.
The 507 that Elvis borrowed (and later purchased) from a Frankfurt dealer in the fall of 1958 wasn’t a new car. It had been well-maintained by BMW, however, as its previous driver was none other than racer Hans Stuck, who used the car to compete in hillclimb events when it wasn’t being displayed at continental motor shows or shown to European royalty. Prior to this, it had served as a demonstrator and press fleet car, so to ensure reliable operation for future owners, BMW installed a new engine and new transmission into chassis 70079 before it was offered for sale.
The car’s condition upon arrival in Munich in 2014.
Elvis’s 507 didn’t remain finished in white for long. Even while in the service, Presley was besieged by groupies, and finding lipstick marks or phone numbers scrawled across the hood and fenders in lipstick was reportedly a common occurrence. To solve the problem, his simple-but-elegant solution was to have the car painted red, something that would later add to the uncertainty surrounding his ownership of the car.
Yes, a small block Chevy will fit in a BMW 507 with enough cutting.
Registration plates affixed to the car during Elvis’s time in Germany only compounded the mystery. At purchase, the car was photographed wearing export license plates, which were later changed to military registration plates. As BMW’s research revealed, these were changed yearly, making it look like Elvis may have owned more than one 507 during his time in Germany, which wasn’t the case.
The car’s altered dash.
In 1960, Elvis returned to the United States, but what had become of his BMW was less certain. No one seemed to know whether or not the convertible was exported to the United States, and when Elvis later gifted a white BMW 507 to actress and Fun in Acapulco costar Ursula Andress, many believed this was Elvis’s original car. BMW had no records of the car in Germany following Presley’s return to the United States, but no U.S. registration documents linked him to the car, either.
Post-restoration. The license plate is the same number carried when Stuck raced the car.
In 1960, chassis 70079 was traded in to a Chrysler dealer in New York, but sans any documentation proving that the car had once been owned by the King of Rock and Roll. For Birmingham, Alabama, DJ and aspiring drag racer Tommy Charles, speculation was good enough, and he became the BMW’s next owner in 1962. Wanting more power than BMW’s 148-horsepower, 3.2-liter V-8 served up, Charles opted to drop in a supercharged Chevy V-8, bolted to a Borg-Warner transmission sending torque to the rear wheels through a Chevrolet rear end.
The driveline swap wasn’t exactly a bolt-in modification, and to create the room needed, the BMW’s front frame carrier was cut out. The dashboard was altered, too, in order to fit new instruments, but the changes had the desired effect in increasing performance. Charles is on record as winning a race in Daytona behind the wheel of his Bimrolet, but the car didn’t amuse him for long, as it passed to a new owner in 1963. It would change hands one more time before landing with Jack Castor in California in 1968.
An aerospace engineer by trade, Castor drove the car in this condition for a number of years before placing the car into storage for a future restoration. Aware of the car’s reported but unproven history, Castor’s goal was to restore the car to its as-delivered state, and in preparation for this, he began amassing BMW 507 replacement parts as his time and budget allowed. Most elusive of all was a replacement BMW V-8, which continued to delay the onset of the project, frustrating Castor.
Enter journalist Jackie Jouret, who worked for years to prove that chassis 70079 was the same car once owned by Elvis Presley before publishing her findings in Bimmer magazine in 2009. Proving that 70079 was the car raced by Stuck was easy enough, but no paper trail conclusively linked Elvis Presley to the same serial number. Jouret was also instrumental in bringing Castor together with BMW Group Classic, and after a multi-year dialogue, Castor was finally convinced that selling his 507 to BMW would provide the car’s best shot at a comprehensive restoration.
The work began in 2014, and the restoration proved to be among the most challenging ever undertaken by BMW Group Classic. Though Castor had included decades of accumulated spares with the car, many needed parts were simply unavailable and had to be created from scratch. To ensure the restoration was as accurate as possible, materials and methods used during the car’s original assembly were recreated. Paint was applied using period-correct primers, fillers and top coats, and seats were rebuilt using the same rubberized coconut mats, felt and linen that BMW would have used in the 1950s. Period photos were studied in order to duplicate both the type of leather used on the seats and the stitch pattern.
Window cranks, long unavailable, had to be created from scratch.
As a byproduct of the restoration, BMW Group Classic has produced seals and other components long out of stock to help with the restoration of future BMW 507 models. Much has been learned about rapid prototyping and 3D printing to create parts on demand, which will aid the future restoration of a variety of BMW models.
Continued research in Munich, at BMW Classic Archives, has also turned up the “missing link” document, too: An insurance binder from December of 1958 lists Elvis Presley as the registered driver of BMW 507 chassis 70079, putting an end to a mystery that has stretched across nearly six decades. When the Feather White 507 makes its public debut at Pebble Beach later this month, its provenance is no longer in doubt.
See original article at" https://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2016/08/08/fresh-from-a-two-year-restoration-elviss-bmw-507-to-debut-at-pebble-beach/
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