BMW 507 owned by the car’s designer – yours for £2.2m

German Count’s Beemer is up for grabs in December

Imagine painting a lovely landscape, framing it up and sending it to auction, only to buy it yourself because you thought it was so nice.

It’s a similar story with this BMW: a mid-century stunner that still turns heads today, the 507 was designed in the ’50s by Count Albrecht Graf von Goertz – and he only went and bought one for himself in the ’70s.

The difference, of course, is that the Beemer is objectively one of the most magnificent cars ever designed. Your landscape painting? Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Anyway, the big news is that this remarkable 507 – the very one owned by the Count – could be yours when it goes under the hammer in December. Want the story? Read on…

Limited-run stunner

BMW’s 507 was a drop-dead stunner of a roadster that launched in 1956 and was built for just three years, with a mere 252 leaving the factory before production ceased. 

Why? It was too expensive, with the German marque losing money on every one it completed.

All thanks to Max

How did the beautiful, costly thing come into being?

It was all down to US importer Max Hoffman who, in 1954, managed to twist the arm of BMW bigwigs, promising that if they built a machine to rival the equally stunning Mercedes-Benz 300SL, he’d sell the nuts and bolts off it.

There's only one von Goertz

After Hoffman turned his nose up at early designs by one Ernst Loof, he brought Albrecht von Goertz on board to pick up the pen for both the 503 and 507.

A German designer stationed in New York, von Goertz had set up his own design business just one year previously, after a decade of styling for Studebaker.

Going the whole hog

Thrown in at the deep end, von Goertz was tasked with designing the whole roadster – making it the first car he ever styled from top to bottom.

Of course, there were some limitations: the new 507 was to be based on the existing 502 roadster, including its 3.2-litre all-alloy V8 engine.

Nice, but not the fastest

The chassis was shortened but remained pretty hefty, meaning aluminium bodywork was a must in order to save weight, with the final car hitting the scales at roughly 1300kg.

With 150bhp at its disposal, the 507 had decent pace but wouldn’t set the world on fire, doing the 0-60mph drag in around 11 seconds.

Incredibly at any speed

Take one look at the magnificent machine, though – with its sweeping wheelarches, uncluttered lines, long nose and sharp front end – and you quickly realise it’s a car that could steal hearts even while parked.

That it cruised like the best of them only added to its appeal as a divine drop-top. Just ask the King of Rock ’n’ Roll: Elvis owned two.

Loss-making gamble

Launched in 1955 in New York, the 507 certainly caused a stir – but so did its price tag: high development and production costs doubled the initial prediction, putting the US ticket at a sky-high $9000 – or £65,000 ($85,000) today. 

Despite high-profile buyers (the Aga Khan and John Surtees each owned one) and that delightful shell, sales fell far short of expectations and the model brought BMW to the brink of bankruptcy. Bad call, Max.

From loss-maker to million-pound motor

Production ceased in 1959 to curtail any further losses. Of course, that only had the perverse effect of making the car more desirable today – with roughly 200 still in existence and all worth millions.

And this 1958 example is one of those 200, delivered new to Vienna in a gleaming coat of silver grey.

Never forget your 507

Its full history isn’t certain but, by 1971, it was stabled with none other than Count Albrecht Graf von Goertz himself.

Since designing the 507, von Goertz had worked as a consultant for Nissan, overseeing the marque’s clay-modelling efforts and contributing to a couple of prototypes – but he obviously hadn’t forgotten the beauty he’d penned back in the ’50s.

Motor mods

Clearly looking to squeeze a little more performance out of the 507 he’d had such a big hand in creating, he commissioned Autohaus Martini to source and fit a replacement engine.

Thus modified, the German designer enjoyed his creation for the better part of 15 years.

Loved for all its life

Eventually, come 1985, von Goertz parted ways with his 507. It would go on to enjoy an extensive restoration in the ’90s, before passing to a new owner in 2000.

Today, it’s stabled in a private collection in Germany and goes to auction in ‘good, restored condition’.

Once a bank-breaker, always a bank-breaker

It might not be the most pristine 507 out there, then, but it doesn’t want for provenance: after all, how often do you get to steer the machine bought by the man who designed it?

If the Beemer does take your fancy, best head down to the Bonhams Bond Street sale in London on 1 Dec 2018 – where it’s expected to fetch between £2.1m and £2.2m. Yikes.