True BMW fans know that one of cars the Bavarian company made in the 1950s had a very interesting nickname. The BMW 501 is also known as the “Baroque Angel”, a nickname that also applied to the 502 as the two had similar designs but different underpinnings. Introduced in 1952, the BMW 501 was loved by customers mainly for its shape which was a bit of a novelty back then. It was also a popular car, being used rather often as a taxi in Germany.
That’s exactly what the history file of the car below will tell you. The guys from BMW Group Classic decided to bring out one of the cars with the most miles on the clock, in their collection. According to them, this BMW 501 was a taxi and had covered over 1 million kilometers (over 620,000 miles) by the time it was bought back by BMW.
The people over at BMW Classic restored the car but wanted to keep certain parts intact.
Therefore, the upholstery inside, the carpets and a lot of the interior remains the same, just like it was back in the 1970s when the car entered the BMW Classic collection. And you can tell, as there’s a lot of tear and wear in there. However, the leather is still hanging on and I really didn’t expect it to be in such a good shape after all these years. As BMW Classic’s Ben Voss points out, even the taxi clock works, meaning you could use this car as a taxi today. Of course, provided you could get some Deutsche Marks, as it does offer prices in the old money Germany used before the introduction of the Euro.
And that’s no joke, as the car is in good running shape. According to Ben, the V8 under the hood was first supposed to get a makeover when the specialists started working on restoring this 501. However, upon opening up the engine, they found it to be good to go so they just closed it back up, even though the car has so many miles on the clock.
They got all the tech bits in perfect shape so that the car is actually currently registered in Germany and passed the technical inspection needed to be allowed on public roads.
