Porsche just recently sold a brand-new 1990’s 993-generation 911 Turbo S. That’s not a typo. Porsche took the blueprints, tooling and some original, unused spare parts for a 993 Turbo S and built a brand-new one. It’s the exact same car as it was from the 1990’s, down to every single nut and bolt.
Porsche did this to celebrate 70 years of the brand and because the 993 Turbo S was a very rare, very exciting car that was only owned by an elite few, such as Wolfgang Porsche and Jerry Seinfeld. It’s been dubbed “Project Gold”, thanks to its Golden Yellow Metallic paint color that is actually a new color from the new 911 Turbo S, and it recently sold at auction for $3,121,090. And BMW should do something similar.
Admittedly, this “Project Gold” Porsche is actually not road legal in most countries. This is because it’s not a restored car, it’s a brand-new car with a 2018 VIN, as it was built from left over parts and newly made ones. It’s not a restored car but an entirely new one. So it doesn’t meet current road regulations in almost any country, making it illegal as a brand-new car (though, we can see some very wealthy, very influential person getting an exception made for it, a la Bill Gates and the Porsche 959).
Even still, this would still be awesome for other brands to do more often and BMW would be a great brand to do it. Few car companies have as many awesome, classic cars that are so revered as BMW. Like Porsche, most BMW enthusiasts yearn for the bygone days of their favorite Bavarian brand, days which produced cars like the BMW 3.0 CSL, M1, E28 M5 and E30 M3.
It would be awesome if BMW resurrected some of those cars and sold them as entirely brand-new cars, built from scratch. While they might not be road legal, they would be awesome track toys and collectors items. BMW has a huge catalog of cars it can choose from to do so and all of them would be great choices. Though, I sort of understand any brand’s hesitance to do so, considering the fact that they can’t sell them as road cars.
However, there should be some sort of legal exception for these cars. Obviously, they don’t mean current road regulations, for either safety or emissions, but they aren’t brand-new cars. Technically, by the letter of the law they are, but any logical human understands what these sorts of cars really are. So there should be some sort of exception made for them and for the lone Porsche 993 Turbo S “Project Gold”.
If some legal exceptions were to be made, it would be awesome if BMW created some of these brand-new classics and sold them to select customers. Sure, they’d be absurdly expensive but that’s okay. Just knowing they were available would be cool enough for most of us who can’t afford them. But they’d be positively incredible for those who could afford them.