AutoTrader Find of the Week: 1974 BMW 3.0 CS is Life Affirming

Sometimes I worry I’m falling out of love with cars.

After a literal lifetime of automotive enthusiasm, you’d think that would be impossible. I often question the proposition myself. But then I scroll through social media, take a walk through a car show, or even spend time with industry peers and find myself profoundly disenchanted by rage-baiting, militant anti-intellectualism, armchair experts, dogmatic opinions, and desperate ego contests.

I start to fall out of love with cars when it begins to feel less like a hobby and more like a competition — when simple joy is denied for the sake of mass insecurity.

But then I take a look at something like this immaculately restored 1974 BMW 3.0 CS, and I forget about all of those feelings. Actually, I forget about everything and just sort of stare at it for a while until, finally, a thought:

“It’s $89,500. Could I get my hands on that sort of money? How many kidneys do I need, really?”

More than just an all-time looker, the 3.0 CS was actually something of a revelation for BMW. While coming off the success of the four-cylinder “Neue Klasse” and 2000 CS, what was internally known at BMW as the “E9” was actually more of a spiritual successor to the V8-powered 3200 CS.

You can see much of its lineage present in the bodywork, from the iconic kidney-bean grille to the infamous “Hofmeister kink” C-pillar, named for designer Wilhelm Hofmeister (though, as a little trivia, it was actually Italian designer Bertone — of Lamborghini fame — who first incorporated the reverse C-pillar kink into the design of the 3200 CS).

However, unlike its predecessors, the E9 was designed from its inception to be a statement piece: to establish BMW as not just a manufacturer of sensible sedans and small sports cars, but of world-class automobiles. It’s rumoured that Hofmeister wanted to make a car as beautiful as the Jaguar E-Type and personally spearheaded the styling.

However, because BMW didn’t have the manufacturing capability to produce large coupes, it would ultimately turn to Karmann to produce the body and chassis.

Initially introduced as the 2800 CS in 1968, the 3.0 version followed in 1971. The 2800 CS’s 2.8-litre M30 inline-six was bored out to (you guessed it) 3.0 litres and given both improved compression and cooling. Brakes were also upgraded to four-wheel ventilated discs, high-tech stuff for the time. Magazines praised its composure and meaty torque, and the 3.0 CS would become the basis for the legendary homologation special 3.0 CSL.

In 1974, the 3.0 CS received further performance upgrades with help from Alpina, including lightweight aluminum bodywork and wheels, making later models some of the most desirable.

While many great BMWs had come before it, what you had 50 years ago was a six-cylinder, rear-drive luxury GT sports coupe that was as daily-drivable as it was performance-capable. This car, in many ways, is the template for the modern-era BMW — what we think of when we think of BMW today.

Also, notice its fender “gills”? E46, E60, anyone?

Despite its subjective praise and objective beauty, the 3.0 CS was something of a sales flop.

While you’ll find a myriad of guesstimates as to how many BMW 3.0 CS models ever entered circulation, the most trustworthy sources estimate around 2,500 3.0 CS coupes made their way to North America between 1971 and 1974, with some estimates as low as 246 examples for the 1974 production year.

Most may blame the low sales numbers on the 3.0 CS’s high sticker price, gas-guzzler status, and America’s niche fascination with European sports cars having fallen out of favour by the mid-’70s. But I think it’s because they forced BMW to put those cartoonish safety bumpers on the car.

This particular car is being offered for sale on AutoTrader through Caliber Auto in Toronto, Ont., having previously undergone a thorough restoration at a cost totalling more than $45,000.

And while it isn’t the more desirable CSi model equipped with Bosch D-Jetronic mechanical fuel injection (did we mention you could get this car with fuel injection in 1971?), and is instead fitted with twin carburetors, it is optioned with the proper four-speed manual transmission and is otherwise an all-around, very well-optioned example.

In fact, it seems the original owner opted for most of the options available for the 3.0 CS. Finished in “Anthrazitgrau” (Anthracite Grey in the Queen’s) with a caramel leather interior, naturally the leather upholstery option was selected. As was the three-spoke sport steering wheel (standard on the CSL model, though available as an extra on the CS and CSi), as well as the manually operated steel sunroof.

It’s all just peak analogue. Fundamentals that are familiar in even their most modern interpretation, but all done in a purely mechanical expression. You could think of it like a devolution of a modern M4, but in the best possible way.

A modern M4, while a great car, is the kind of thing jerks on Instagram do street takeovers in, or know-it-alls at car shows either boast about or biasedly condemn.

But a 3.0 CS like this one just says, “To hell with all of that.” It isn’t flexing. It doesn’t have anything to prove or shout about. And while it oozes objectively magnificent design and historical significance, all that is almost beside the point as well.

A car like this 3.0 CS is a perfect reminder of what the car hobby should be about — the only thing it should be about: Joy.