BMW 2002 Tii review

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BMW 2002 Tii Road Test

Test date Thursday, December 30, 1971 Price as tested £2,313

For Great performance, excellent handling, quiet, comfortable

Against Poor ventilation, costly

There can be no doubt that the BMW 2002 has proved one of the most successful of the recent crop of "shoehorning jobs" putting a bigger engine into an existing car. Undeniably it was helped by having the splendid BMW 1600 as a starting point, and by the fact that the new engine, while 25 per cent bigger in capacity, was hardly any larger in terms of weight or size. But the resulting 2002 was still better than one might have expected, and in some ways whetted people's appetites for more.

"More" in the first instance meant the adoption of the twin-carburettor engine from the 2000TI, but there was a snag as far as the British market was concerned. It proved impossible to engineer a right-hand drive conversion of the 2002Ti because the induction sat square in the path of the steering column. As a result. British buyers have had to wait for the advent of the 2002Tii.

In the Tii, Kugelfischer indirect injection is used, along with a higher compression ratio, to give a considerable power boost. The new induction arrangement makes it possible to install right-hand drive steering.