World Classics BMW 2002ti

Submitted by Phil Insull

The American guide to blue chip auto investments calls the BMW 2002ti the best car ever to come from the Munich manufacturer. Launched in carburettor form in 1968 the 2002 was the 2 Litre big brother to their successful 1600 two-door saloon. In 1972 the company launched the fuel-injected version, which was to become so successful in the hands of many privateer race and rally drivers in the mid 70's. In the U-2 Trans-Am championship the 2002 scored a number of podiums in the hands of regular drivers Pike, Schuster, and most notably Hans Ziereis who won the category at Bridgehampton, but overall the little car was outgunned by Horst Kwech, and Bert Everett in their Alfa Romeo GTA's. 1971 saw more podiums behind the Alfa's, and the new Datsun 510's run by Peter Brock, but 1972 saw the 2002 slump failing to score even a single podium finish. In European Touring the BMW made up the mainstay with the Porsche 911, Ford Escort, and of course the Alfa GTA in the under 2 litre class. Among the BMW drivers were notable names like Jochen Mass, Dave Matthews, and Andy Rouse. However Cologne had decided to channel its main resources into the bigger 3.0 & 3.2 litre CSL the now famous "Bat mobiles" which had category wins at Le Mans in 1973,74,76, and 77. The Odd year out however provided a solitary category victory for the 2002ti in 1975 as the Brillat, Gagliardi, and Degoumois crew took there 2002 to finish 27th overall, and 1st in the GTS class. As well as being a decent circuit car the 2002 was also a reasonably successful rally car. In 1969, and 1970 privateer driver Helmuth Bein won the German rally championship in his own 2002ti, these results persuaded the Bavarian company to set up its own factory backed team in 1971, run by Bein, employing notable drivers such as Tony Fall, and Rauno Aaltonen, with limited success. In 1972 the BMW finally achieved a major win on the rally Portugal at the hands of Achim Warmbold, followed by similar successes in the 1973 Austrian rally, and 1975 Donegal rally, while fellow BMW driver Bjorn Waldegard missed out on the 1973 RAC crashing with a few stages to go while second, finally finishing seventh. For 1974 came the Schnitzer developed engine for the 2002, but results were scarce, and the factory pulled out of rallying to concentrate on the track development of the 2002's replacement the 3-Series.

World Classics are a new U.K. based slot car manufacturer who's first release is the super little BMW 2002, available either as a pre-primed kit, or RTR. I was fortunate enough to be sent one of the first kits by Sean & his team at Pendle Slot Racing to build, and give my opinion on. The kit comes with a grey primed resin body shell, dark grey resin chassis, clear moulded poly windscreens, interior, head 'N' arms driver, headlight lenses, wipers, and some BMW decals. To complete the build Sean supplied Ninco axles and guide, white GOM wheels, and tyres. Now if you've read any of my previous reviews on TopSlot kits you'll know I always recommend drilling the body mounting pegs before doing anything else, well good news here is that those thoughtful chaps at World Classics have done it for you, the chassis is ready to screw straight onto the body. (I used some small 13mm long screws from my bits and pieces box). The GOM wheels push fit onto the Ninco axles, which in turn clip neatly into the front and rear axle mountings on the chassis, and the Ninco guide drops into the front mounting. (I did open this out a touch with a round file to allow it to turn more freely). Next came the motor, which was a standard Hornby Mabuchi, which again dropped neatly into the chassis mountings with no fuss at all. Next question was did I fit a magnet or not, there is a raised moulding between the motor, and rear axle, and one ahead of the motor, either of which could easily be opened out for a Hornby/Slot-it super magnet but I decided the car would be more authentic without. Having tested the chassis on its own I decided the front end was a little light, so I fitted a small strip of lead in the space ahead of the motor. This done the chassis fair flew round my little Ninco test track in spite of a motor barely pushing out 14,000 r.p.m. Next was a dry fit of the body onto the chassis, this screwed on without any trouble, and was briefly tested again with excellent results. Dimensionally the BMW has a rear track of 54.50 mm, front track of 54.00mm, wheelbase of 71.50mm, overall length of 122.40mm, and a height of 40.00mm.

The last stage was painting, and decals, the pre-primed body is excellent my example being pretty blemish free, certainly as good the excellent TopSlot range of bodies, and the only bit of flatting required was under the rear bumper, but there was no pit marks which you can get on some resin bodies if they've not been moulded properly. Moulding details include front grille, badges, door handles, bonnet vents, number plates, and even lettering on the boot spoiler. As the car needed building quite quickly for this review I decided on a simple white scheme with blue side stripes, and with some spare decals decided to try to make it look as much like Warmbolds rally of Portugal '72 winning entry. Fortunately I had some rally Portugal (78) door, and bonnet competitor transfers, plus castrol, Pirelli, and bilstein ones which allowed me to do a reasonable reproduction, though if World Classics do really want to outshine the likes of TopSlot then they need to get someone like Virages to do their transfers for them. Three coats of gloss white, some detailing work on the shell, and interior (As mine was a rally car I fitted a second driver figure, plus an extinguisher) paint the wheels aluminium colour, a short burst with the decalfix and hairdryer, and hey presto one decent looking 2002 rally car. Barely had the paint had time to dry (I haven't gotten around to lacquering it yet) and it was off to Wolverhampton to see how it coped on a decent size track. The answer was very well indeed I managed some pretty respectable times coming less than 0.5 of a second off our normal two wheel drive non-magnet rally car pace, which considering I'd had little chance to do anything other than screw it together is really rather good. The real bonus for me was the smoothness and consistency with which you could build up a rhythm with the little BMW and lap times were rarely more than 0.1-0.2 seconds different once I'd found the groove. Like a good many collector/racers though I don't tend to race many resin kit cars for fear of damage, after I've put the effort into building them. I prefer to restrict their outings to after the racing has finished and the extra push you get from adrenalin fuelled racing would either make the BMW competitive, or push it past its limits and I'm not prepared to risk finding out.

So what's my verdict on the World Classics BMW 2002, well I was particularly impressed with the standard of the moulding on the body shell, the pre-priming meant less hassle when it came to painting, and all the components fitted neatly together without any struggle to line things up. There were no major modifications required to any of the running gear parts, such as having to cut axles down to size, which can be a real pain on some kit's I've done in the past, so in short just about anyone could fit the BMW together as a decent runner without any bother at all. Minor gripes would be a lack of a basic instruction/assembly sheet (I don't need it but some younger collectors might) the box isn't much use for keeping the finished car in, and the transfers that came with it were not much use. The kit itself however is a fine first effort and would make a great introduction to resin kit building thanks to it's ease of assembly, and you could do it in hundreds of colour schemes from the Trans-Am, Touring, and Clubman series of the early 1970's or if your like me you can try and reproduce one of the rarer cars from the WRC instead. I hope World Classics will produce some more kits, and I really look forward to the chance of building & reviewing them.