About tough to crack puzzle #167: BMW 3200 Michelotti Vignale

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You could describe last week’s quiz car as ‘a BMW 507 but not as we know it’. Well - you knew! The car was the 507 based BMW 3200 Michelotti Vignale, shown at Turin in 1959 with a body mixing up the work of Vignale, Michelotti and Scaglietti. Steve Bousfield described the mix as a mongrel: “Dating from 1959, some would call it a mongrel as so many took part in its creation. It has a BMW 507 chassis together with its 3.2 litre V8 engine. Styling is by Giovanni Michelotti, production responsibility went to Sergio Scaglietti in Modena whilst assembly was by Alfredo Vignale in Turin. It is usually known as the BMW 3200 Michelotti Vignale. It is currently with the BMW Mobile Tradition Collection.”

That was a perfect answer and most of you managed to puzzle this information together easily. So let’s see who could add some more? Don Siemers: “Pass it down through a few owners, paint it red and park it in the Blackhawk Museum. Does anyone know what became of those hubcaps? That hardtop design is a clone of the lid put on the Triumph TR4.” Bart Dhondt: “This car was in the Zoute concours d’elegance.” Herman van Oldeneel: “Conceived as a coupé, but in fact a roadster plus hardtop. Estimated price tag if produced: 20% less then an ordinary 507. Many design clues in other Michelotti designs as the Triumph Italia and Jaguar D-Type Michelotti.” Alan Spencer: “This one-off prototype was intended to be a second generation 507, but despite anticipated cost savings, it was not approved for production.” Tobias Wenzel: “Prototype for which should become the second BMW 507 series, but it never reached production. BMW Classic bought the car in 2004.” So far so good, but no fireworks.

Now, there came Luk Martens, spicing things further up: “Michelotti didn't like the original 507 by Albrecht von Goertz. The car premiered at the 1959 Turin show and made quite an impression on the direction board of Triumph, who hired Michelotti for styling their cars. One can see hints of the future TR5 and TR6 models. The car has the smallest BMW badge ever. Nowadays it's painted bright red and lacks the chromed wheels.” That’s the kind of fact we like, thank you Luk. Could it be bettered? Yes, it could. Till Jauernig from what he describes as ‘Bavaria, the land of BMW’ himself, wins. He added in his answer: “In 1986 the American collector Oscar Davis bought the car at a auction in Britain (from the Earl of Chichester collection) without knowing that it was no normal 507.” That's lovely. Thank you for that.

(Words editor, picture source unknown)

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