Of the three gentlemen who make up the automotive podcast that is Spike’s Car Radio, Paul Zuckerman is who I usually find the most entertaining — aside from the guests, of course. His brusque and irreverent personality appeals to me, but it’s Paul’s sublime and eclectic automotive tastes that I appreciate the most. He recently acquired an example of the first 5-series sedan — a 1979 E12 BMW 525 — and it is glorious. For today’s Good Find Friday, I searched for an example just like his.

Like a lot of early BMWs, people seem to overlook the E12 generation of 5-series. It’s not surprising that it’s overshadowed by the excellent E28 and E34 generations that succeeded it. The E12 5-series built on the success from the Neue Class series of cars, initially using that car’s 90 horsepower 4-cylinder engine and transmission for its launch in 1972. With the introduction of a 150 horsepower straight-six in 1977 for the BMW 520.

The car was designed by Paul Bracq, known for his fine design work at Mercedes-Benz and work on the E25 Turbo concept that inspired the M1 supercar. The E12’s design also incorporates a number of details from the wild 2200ti Garmisch concept car that was developed in conjunction with Bertone — meaning the E12 has a Marcello Gandini connection as well. Notable features include the use of computers to calculate the geometry for the crumple zones, McPherson front struts, semi-trailing arm rear-end, and 4-wheel disc brakes.

Today’s Good Find Friday car is as close a BMW as I could find to Zuckerman’s spec, with the eye-catching light metallic green over a green interior being a key requirement. The car is for sale by a dealer in the Czech Republic, so importation costs apply.

The exterior of this E12 BMW features exterior paint that appears to be the same shade of green — called Reseda Green — as Paul Zuckerman’s car, and looks to be in excellent condition overall. Lighting in the dealer’s showroom makes it difficult to perfectly determine the shade. Dealer branding has been applied to various points on the car, which is hopefully removable with relative ease. The E12 cars featured a sporty, but superfluous vent on the C-pillars, but it does help break up the exterior styling a bit.

Body panels and trim appear to be nice and straight, with the bumper chrome and trim around the car looking straight and clean. 

The wheels on this car are BBS-Mahle alloys in a basketweave pattern. The wheels appear to be in good overall condition in terms of scratches and gouges, but display some radial staining, perhaps from brake dust.

Moving to the interior, the dashboard appears clean and clear of cracks, with the instrument pod housing both a speedometer and tachometer as well as supplemental fuel and coolant temperature gauges. The odometer displays 148,191 kilometers or 92,081 miles.

There appears to be a Blaupunkt accessory mounted to the side of the console, which is probably the period voice recorder noted in the description. I’ve never seen that before! Also visible in this image is the quirky knob used to adjust the fan speed. Instead of a separated switch, the fan knob is actually a knurled ring around the clock. Zuckerman mentioned this in the podcast, and I have to agree with him that it’s utterly charming.

The interior cloth seating on this car is in exceptionally good condition, with maybe a small blemish here or there, as seen on the passenger seat. It would appear to be some kind of velour. The material has a long-standing image as being gaudy, but it’s a very hard-wearing fabric in my experience, and that seems evident here. The rest of the interior finishings are coordinating green vinyl or carpet.

The engine in this 525 is the longitudinally-mounted M58 inline six, fed with air by a Solex 4A1 carburetor. It’s a 2.4 liter engine putting out around 148 horsepower.

Included with the car are an interesting pillow-shaped first aid kit, fire extinguisher, tool kit with jack in the trunk, and spare tire.

The asking price on this green beauty is €16,900 or $17,513. Sales for the E12 BMW 525 aren’t terribly plentiful, making defining a market value somewhat difficult. The closest car to the 525 with more sales is the 530i, but that car has a number of improvements over the 525 in terms of performance. Perhaps the 525 is more coveted in Europe, as that seems to be where most of them are on offer.

So is this a good deal? We’ll have to judge by retail pricing. Similar E12 525 BMW cars on offer range in price between €13,000 and €19,000, but this car has the lowest mileage of the bunch and is the only one in Reseda Green with a manual transmission. By that measure it’s the one to go for, but it IS in Czechia…

If you want to ride like Zuck, you’ll have to pay up for the car — and its importation — as there appear to be no good-condition E12 BMW 525s currently on offer in the United States. Paul has a lovely and rare car indeed.

Wolf and Mare provides car finding, appraisal and auction services for sellers and buyers of collector European cars. We also provide importation services. Give us a call or drop us a line!