The 3 Series is 50 years young. BMW introduced the E21 in 1975 as a replacement for the 2002, although the latter continued until 1977. The Bavarians plan to celebrate the milestone at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este this May. In the meantime, a nifty animation shows the early days of the 3er.
We’re all familiar with the sedan, but the BMW aficionados know there had been other ideas. Paul Bracq’s team explored additional shapes, and yes, one of them was a hatchback. The colorful clip released this week shows two iterations of the 3 Series left on the cutting room floor – one for a conventional hatch and another for a more 2002 Touring-like model.
Call me old-fashioned, but nothing beats the elegance of a sedan. Thankfully, the original 3 Series was ultimately chosen with a two-door sedan body style. BMW’s head of sales and marketing at the time, Bob Lutz, pushed for this body style, projecting it would be more popular in North America and Germany than a hatchback. Bracq’s team perfected a three-box shape, beginning an immensely successful lineage.
Here’s hoping BMW will dig up more of these early design sketches of the 3 Series from its archives this year. It’s fascinating to see how models that became veritable automotive icons could’ve looked substantially different. There were valid reasons to toy around with the idea of a hatchback because these types of cars were increasing in popularity across Europe in the 1970s. However, we can all agree BMW made the best choice and that Bob Lutz was right.
BMW sold the E21 strictly as a two-door sedan, with precisely 1,364,039 cars delivered between 1975 and 1983. However, of the total production run, 4,595 were convertibles modified by Stuttgart-based coachbuilder Baur. The subsequent E30 generation had a more diverse lineup with a four-door sedan, the more practical Touring, and a cabriolet.
Source: BMW / Instagram
