Revenge of the Propeller Heads

One of the interesting things about getting older—at least as a car enthusiast—is looking back on all the cars that you either owned or let slip through your fingers…that are now worth a freaking fortune! Of course, there’s the obvious Shelby Cobra and Ferrari 250 GTO stories, but more recently I’ve become acutely aware of an entire era and genre of cars that has slowly gone kind of nutty.

It wasn’t all that long ago—around the turn of the millennium—where you couldn’t cross the street without tripping over small displacement, entry level, late ’60s and early ’70s European sports cars. For a few thousand dollars (or much less!), you had your choice of Alfa Spiders, Porsche 912s…even Porsche 911s. Yet, today, Alfa Romeo Giulia Spiders can fetch over $70,000 and the lowly and long unloved 912 can fetch over $50,000! But there was another one of these entry-level cars that was so ubiquitous (at least here in California) that you virtually saw one for sale in every gas station—that car being the BMW 2002.