Elvis' BMW 507 Returns

The King of Rock and Roll's BMW will score its own comeback at the upcoming Concours d’Elegance in Pebble Beach.

The BMW 507 that belonged to Elvis

First the back story of this particular BMW 507 courtesy of BMW:

No other automobile of this model is shrouded in mythology like the BMW 507once owned by Elvis Presley. This particular roadster was believed to have been lost for almost five decades. In fact, there was not even certainty about the chassis number of the car driven by the "King". There were also doubts about whether Elvis Presley had ever transported the car back to the USA after he finished his military service in Germany, and nobody knew anything about the subsequent ownership of the car.

But thanks to those at BMW Group Classic Archives and American journalist Jackie Jouret who works for Corporate Communications, we now know the rest of the story.

Produced between 1955 and 1959, BMW built just 254 examples of the 507 following its world premiere at the 1955 Frankfurt Motor Show. Once the show finished, the model on the stand at Frankfurt (which rolled off the assembly line on September 13th, 1957), finished in Feather White with chassis number 70079, was assigned registration plate M–JX 800.

Later that year, racing driver Hans Stuck displayed the car at both the London Motor and Turin Motor Shows. In addition, between May and August of 1958, "Hillclimb Champion" Stuck, driving chassis number 70079, won a number of hillclimbs in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Serviced after every race and given an engine upgrade and new gearbox, it ended up with a dealer in Frankfurt in the autumn of 1958 where it was noticed by a very uncommon American Army sergeant serving with Company A, 1st Medium Tank Battalion, 32nd Armor Regiment's 3rd Armored Division.

Just 23 years old at the time, Elvis Aaron Presley took it for a test drive and bought the car.

Presley used it to commute between his home in Bad Nauheim and the US Army Base in Friedberg. His fans in Germany found out about his new roadster and its paintwork was frequently covered with messages of love painted in lipstick. Presley, embarrassed by all this, had the 507 repainted in Red, solving the problem.

In March of 1960, his military service in Germany ended and, at that time, the rest of the world lost track of the Elvis Presley BMW 507. But here, as they say, is the rest of the story:

• A few months after his return in 1960, Elvis traded in the 507 at a Chrysler dealer in New York.
• The dealer sold it to radio moderator Tommy Charles for $4,500.
• Charles took it to his hometown, Birmingham, Alabama.
• Charles fitted the 507 with a Chevrolet engine (cutting out the front carrier in the process), new gearbox and rear axle and new cockpit instrumentation and began racing it.
• Charles sold it in 1963.
• The 507 changed owners two more times before moving to California.
• Space engineer Jack Castor bought the car in 1968, driving it nearly every day before putting it into storage hoping to one day restore it.
• Castor, now retired, began researching his BMW 507 and discovered it was driven by Hans Stuck.
• Jackie Jouret writes an article in "Bimmer" magazine about the Stuck-Presley 507. Castor reads the article and writes a letter to Jouret, informing her that he owns the vehicle.
• Jouret pays Castor a visit and accompanies him to a pumpkin warehouse where the 507 was stored.

"Jack had tied down its engine bonnet with ropes," recalled the journalist when she looked back on the moment of discovery. "It took some time until we actually got the engine compartment open and identified the stamped chassis number: 70079, the Holy Grail among BMW numbers."

By this time, in anticipation of a restoration, Castor had already collected a large number of parts – but he was running out of time and still hadn't found an engine. In the mean time, Jouret set up a contact with BMW Group Classic where the 507's authenticity was verified. Following a couple of years of discussions between Castor and BMW, BMW Group Classic purchased chassis number 70079. It and the parts were loaded into a container and, in the spring of 2014, the whole lot was shipped to Germany.

Following a trip to the BMW Museum in Munich where the unrestored 507 was displayed in a special exhibition entitled "Elvis' BMW 507– lost and found," restoration work was finally begun.

It took two weeks to dismantle the aluminum body and sheet steel floor assembly, with the former receiving an alkaline bath and the latter an acid bath, with the interior remnants set aside.

Some components were available, but many had to be created from scratch. For example, window winders and door handles were reproduced from a digital data set of three dimensional scans of the original parts, generating a facsimile that was then remanufactured using 3D printing followed by mirror finishing.

With no engine, one was completely rebuilt from spare parts in conformity with the original specifications (although, because of both old and new components, no engine number could be assigned to it). When it came time to paint it, the primer, filler and new Feather White top coat were applied using 60-year-old technology.

Sadly, Jack Castor passed away in November 2014 at the age of 77. But according to BMW:

We will therefore remember him at Pebble Beach. The BMW 507 will be presented there for the first time not simply as the automobile of the "King", but also as the legacy of Jack Castor and a masterpiece of BMW Group Classic.

Pebble Automotive Week, including The 2016 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance where one of this year's special classes is "100 Years of BMW," takes place Tuesday August 16th through Sunday, August 21st (when the Concours, itself, takes place).