Between the old-timey 2002 and the hugely influential E30 , there was the E21 .
. Over in Yurp, BMW shoppers could buy 315s and 316s and 323s and I don’t know what all, but here in North America we know the E21 almost exclusively via the good old 320i. The 2002 overlapped E21 production by a couple of years; likewise, BMW showrooms in 1983 held the final examples of the 320i side-by-side with the brand-new E30-platform 318i. Here’s an example of one of those end-times E21s, spotted last week in a Denver self-service wrecking yard.
Either somebody pried off the little “i” on this emblem without leaving a mark, or we’re looking at a European-market 320 trunk lid. Such are the mysteries of the junkyard.
Almost 220,000 miles on the clock, extremely respectable for a Late Malaise Era car that probably got hooned every day of its life.
This car is fairly straight, a bit of rust but nothing too terrible. Looks like somebody grabbed the seats right away, perhaps the same BMW aficionado that picked this nearby 2002clean.