DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

Some years ago I came across this Norwegian registered BMW 2002ti. It had been bought by the BMW specialist on the same farm as me, coincidentally from Mark Waring, who had taken it in part exchange for a 911ST that he sold in Norway.



It turned out that it had competed in the 1971 Monte Carlo Rally, starting no. 111 from Oslo, by Johan Johannessen and T. Carlsen. In those days it was entered as a Group 1 standard showroom car and was returned to the supplying dealer for resale after a couple more rallies including the 1971 Baltic Rally

The car was first registered to Johan on 17/7/1970

I have always wanted to do a "serious" rally, having joined in some of the Slowly Sideways events in Belgium, Germany and Ireland in various 911s, one an ex-works Zasada 911 from the 1977 London - Sydney and my brother's ex-works 1964 Mini Cooper S. Seeing as the BMW had originally done the Monte I decided that it would be fitting to do the Rally Monte Carlo Historique (RMCH) with brother Peter as navigator. He is pretty experienced, having started in the RMCH 11 times, winning his class twice.

So, at the beginning of 2013 I started stripping the car to prepare it properly for the Monte. The motor that was fitted to it went back to Norway as part of the deal to buy the car. It was a high spec Alpina motor that had been "borrowed" some years ago. With the car came a donor 1969 BMW 2002 that would supply many of the parts required for the restoration as well as the base motor to replace the Alpina unit.

The shell turned out to be rather rusty, but very restorable as plenty of panels are available for 02s

Getting a cuppa ready for this one

Going to be great fun.
Love lots of welding!

Excellent, cool cars. I look forward to more...

The shell needed new a boot floor and rear panel

New sections of passenger floor





New A pillars and front inner arch areas

Having made the shell solid I sent the shell off to Custom Cages for them to design and fit an FIA spec 6 point cage, then straight to Cleaning Consultants for another surface rust strip before we put on a coat of etch.

We then started on the modifications to turn it into a group 2 rally car. The 1970 group 2 FIA papers allow for GRP extended arches and surprisingly front wings, door bonnet and boot lid, also perspex windows. Later group 2 papers for the 2002tii deleted all this lightweight stuff. As the intention was rallying in some of the harshest and cold conditions of the Alps in January I decided to stick with steel doors and proper glass all round.





I love it when we finally get a coat of primer on the shell after months of work

Looks great Nick. I think a 2002 sits very nicely alongside a period 911.

Rallying can be pretty tough on a car, so we made sure that the underside was properly protected with Tetrosyl Gravitex then 3M sprayable sealer on the most vulnerable areas such as the arches

Although the car was originally Colorado (orange) which is a shade very similar to Porsche Signal Orange



I preferred Chamonix, perhaps with a few brightening details......

Fantastic thread Nick, love the 2002. Where do you plan to start the Monte from and will it be next year?

Richard had some Lime Green left over from Ferry Man's Carrera 2.7 and thought it would be fun to try it out on my 02, without telling me of course.



I had spotted this colour scheme during my research on 2002s on the Monte.

Brilliant!