Modern Classics Presents the 1981 BMW 635CSi E24
🇿🇦 ZAR 385 000
🇬🇧 GBP 17 600
🇪🇺 EUR 20 600
🇳🇿 NZD 40 450
🇦🇺 AUD 33 700
🇸🇬 SGD 30 500
🇺🇸 USD 23 710
[Prices are based on current exchange rates and may vary]
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The 1981 BMW 635CSi E24 comes from an era when a grand touring coupé was built to be driven. It had to cross countries effortlessly, carry its occupants in comfort and still make you turn around for one last look after parking it. Few cars understood that brief quite as well as BMW’s original 6 Series. There is something unmistakable about an early E24. That long bonnet, low roofline and famous “shark nose” give the car a presence that has never needed exaggeration. Add the pillarless glass, thin chrome detailing and beautifully balanced proportions and you begin to understand why this shape has aged so gracefully.
This particular 635CSi is an early, pre-facelift example from 1981, finished in a beautiful period gold metallic over a light interior. It is a colour combination that suits the character of the car perfectly. Sophisticated rather than loud, elegant without trying too hard.
And then there is the mileage, 266,500 kilometres.
We could try to make that number disappear into the small print, but that would completely miss the point of a car like this. Those kilometres tell you that this BMW has done what its engineers built it to do. It has travelled. It has been used. It has carried people and accumulated stories over more than four decades.
There is something rather appealing about an old BMW that hasn't spent its entire life sitting under a cover waiting for someone to preserve it for the next owner. This one has lived and after 266,500 km, it is still here, still presenting beautifully and still ready to remind you why these big BMW coupés earned such a reputation in the first place. Under that long bonnet sits BMW’s 3.5-litre straight-six, an engine that helped define the marque during this period. Smooth, responsive and full of character, it turns the 635CSi into the kind of car that feels equally at home winding through a mountain pass or settling into a long-distance cruise.
This car is paired with the automatic transmission, perhaps the most fitting gearbox for the gentleman’s GT character of the 635CSi. You don't need to wrestle with it or prove anything to it. You simply get in, settle into that unmistakably BMW driving position, point the shark nose towards the horizon and let the car do what it was designed to do.The details are part of the charm. The driver-focused dashboard wraps subtly towards you. Large analogue instruments sit clearly ahead. The thin pillars and generous glass make the cabin feel wonderfully open, while those slightly off-centre twin exhaust pipes at the rear remain one of those small 635CSi details enthusiasts immediately recognise. Records show only 515 right-hand-drive automatic 635CSi examples were produced during 1981, making an early car like this something you don't come across every day, but numbers only tell part of its story. The real reason to own an E24 is the way it makes an ordinary drive feel different. The view down that long bonnet. The straight-six coming to life. The thin steering wheel in your hands. The mechanical honesty of an early BMW built before layers of electronics began separating the driver from the machine.
Produced from 1976 to 1989, the E24 became one of BMW's defining designs. Decades later, one glance at this car tells you exactly why. This 1981 BMW 635CSi deserves to be driven, not hidden away. Its 266,500 kilometres aren't something to apologise for. They're part of its story. A true gentleman's GT coupé, with the miles behind it to prove it.
Located in Pretoria East , South Africa
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