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by David Skinner, IAM Newbury Group
My favourite car was a 1988 BMW 525e, registration E312 KLL. I bought it in 1991 when it was three years old with 39,000 miles on the clock.
I had previously owned an earlier model BMW 5-series from new, but that was a 1979 520 with a 4-speed manual gearbox and no power steering – nice, but with several drawbacks. I had read lots about the 525e and took a long time trying to find one. Finally, at a BMW dealer in Ilford, I discovered one; it was one of the last to be built and had a full list of options. It was metallic black, with a black leather ‘buffalo hide’ interior and blacked-out chrome (dechromed); in fact the only chrome on it was the grille surround and the BMW badges – even the retractable radio aerial was black. It looked rather sinister and I thought it was the bee’s knees! It also had cross-spoke alloy wheels that looked brilliant but took ages to clean.
The ‘e’ in 525e stood for the Greek letter ‘eta’ and meant ‘efficiency’. The car was available only with an automatic gearbox; there was no manual option. The engine was a 2.8 litre straight-six petrol but, unlike the other straight-sixes in the BMW range, it had a long stroke and was very low-revving, like a diesel engine – the red zone on the rev counter started at only 4,500 rpm – and had lots of torque. That meant that it would accelerate like a Ferrari, especially if you switched the automatic gearbox into the ‘sport’ mode. It also meant that the car was very economical: I used to get about 30 mpg overall, which for a car with that performance, at that time, was excellent. The car was amazingly comfortable, with armchair front seats and a whole range of electrical wizardry to play with.
I kept that car for about two years, and loved driving it. One day, I parked it in the long-term section of a Tesco car park near Bracknell to go into London by train for a business meeting; when I came back it had gone! There was no broken glass nearby, and no clues. The police took the details, but I never saw the car again. I claimed on my insurance, of course, but the money took several weeks to appear, because the company carried out a detailed investigation before being satisfied that the claim was genuine.
I then bought a blue BMW 525i, the replacement model, but by then the ‘eta’ engine had then been discontinued because it didn’t meet the new emission regulations. Although an excellent car it was never quite as good as the ‘eta’, and I still think longingly about my black BMW.