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By
DAVID PIKE
In July 1954 Germany's first postwar car and BMW's first V8 car - the
502 - was introduced. In using the same body as the 501, at first it was
only recognisable from the outside by its extra chrome trim below the
belt line, a V8 emblem on the boot lid and built-in foglights in its
lower front guards. In late 1955 it got a wraparound rear window, but
several months before this the 501 came out also with a V8 engine, no
side chrome strips and a smaller rear window. After 1957 this latter
model was simply called the BMW 2.6.
The V8 engine used in the 502 developed 75kW,
whereas the smaller one in the 501 only developed 71kW, and was a
front mounted water cooled ohv engine using a single Solex
carburettor driving the rear wheels through a four-speed gearbox.
Initially the car came with drum brakes but in 1960 front wheel
discs and rear wheel drums were standard.
Soft upholstery helped make the 502's rear seat a
pleasant place from which to be chauffeured. Full wheel covers
were added later in the model's life and whitewall tyres were
offered as an option. The car featured the usual BMW bevel-gear
steering system common in immediate postwar models. Front
suspension was in the form of double A-arms with torsion bars and
a live axle, also with torsion bars, was used for the rear
suspension.
A total of 5955 of the model 502 were produced.
This exceeded by 1310 units the number of model 501/3 produced.
The 501, BMW's first postwar passenger car, had an overhead valve
six-cylinder engine which was a bored out version of the two-litre
engine based on the prewar 326, the extra 2mm of bore raising
capacity to 2077cc.
Even the body of the 501/502 followed the general
lines of the prewar 326 model without actually picking up where
the 326 left off. On the 501, the six-cylinder engine with clutch
was attached to the four-speed gearbox by a short shaft and the
position of the gearbox under the front seats made its column
shift linkage rather complicated.
Delivery of the first 501s to customers began more
than a year after the model's introduction. In addition to sedan
versions, coupe and cabriolet versions of each 500 series model
were produced. The 501 was succeeded by the 501A and 501B and in
total 5328 units were produced.
In its original design phase BMW had considered
using the Alfa Romeo 1900 body for the 501 but finally chose its
own design. Despite this, the Alfa designer Pinin Farina gave high
praise to the graceful form of the new car when it was initially
released.
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