1957 BMW 503 Cabriolet

An unprofitable product usually means a good deal for the consumer, after all. The 503 was certainly the former despite its price: the cabriolet was Germany’s most expensive car when new. Yet very few took BMW up on that offer. It was first available in the UK in left-hand drive via sole concessionaire AFN, to little success, and then as a special order in right-hand drive.

This particular example was commissioned by a wealthy East Anglian doctor, Dr Bee (hence the numberplate), and was one of two 503s displayed at the Earls Court Motor Show in 1957 as BMW tried, largely in vain, to drum up more British interest.

Following the general theme of the 503, the re-engineering to right-hand drive was uncompromising. The aluminium dashboard, designed to strengthen the car laterally, was entirely re-cast for what would turn out to be just five right-hand-drive examples, three of which were cabriolets such as this. BMW had originally aimed for a much larger export market with both the 503 and its lithe, sportier 507 stablemate: the USA.

Talks were held with famous European car importer Max Hoffman, who set a target price of $5000. But BMW wasn’t yet ready for mass production, and its small, labour-intensive factory was much better deployed making fewer, more expensive vehicles than attempting any kind of volume production (aside from the tiny Isetta). With Hoffman backing out of the venture when the price of the 503 came back at $8000, very few ever made it to the United States, and nearly all of the 412 built were sold in Europe.

Naïvely, the BMW board believed that if it built the best car possible, it would attract the required price-tag and sales. Having lost its main automotive factory behind the Iron Curtain, there was a need to re-establish the marque. A car that would serve as a beacon of German craftsmanship was the answer, according to BMW’s management, who put off development of the mid-range products that eventually became the company’s speciality.

Most car makers claim to build the best car possible, but you need only look at the BMW close-up to see the stubbornness of its engineers in the face of cost control. Hand-formed aluminium bodywork envelopes the car, including huge doors attached by bank-vault-style hinges that disappear into the front wing.

The hood, unique in Europe at the time in its powered operation, is hydraulic and folds back in just 15 secs in near silence. And the engineering beauty is more than skin-deep. The front suspension is an advanced dual-wishbone set-up that sports kingpins lubricated from a feed via the steering box, negating the need for manual greasing.

The steering itself is a pinion-and-segment (also known as vector-and-pinion) design that works much like a modern system, but the straight rack is replaced by a 180º gear. Early 503s also featured a remote, shaft-driven gearbox separate from the engine, although this was later replaced by a more conventional set-up, including in all of the right-hand-drive cars.

So it wasn’t just marketing spiel when BMW said it was building a car to the highest-possible standard, and while the cost proved too much for most, those who did take the plunge often fell in love. One such buyer was John Surtees.

While still focused on racing on two wheels, the future Grand Prix ace took delivery of a BMW 507, the two-seater roadster that shares most of its componentry with the 503, in 1957. Even he, then a world champion motorcycle racer, couldn’t afford the car outright, but Count Agusta (of MV Agusta) part-funded the purchase, the motorcycle supremo having promised a present when Surtees won him the 500cc World Championship.

Surtees owned that car from new until his death in 2017, and its full story, from the man’s own keyboard, featured in C&SC’s August 1996 edition. Surtees acquired a taste for 50-series BMWs and in 1992 bought BEE 46. It had been sitting, largely unused but well preserved, in AFN’s private collection for 25 years, Dr Bee having returned to the dealer 10 years after buying the car to trade it in for a Porsche, of which AFN had since become a distributor. Decades later, when Porsche bought AFN outright, the BMW was up for sale – and Surtees was tipped off.

A new set of Koni dampers was built for the car by the retired racer, and they still wear a ‘SURTEES’ stamp on their castings today. Surtees also added his own design of gearshift extension, identical to one long since fitted to his 507. In both cars, he said, the original stick was a bit of a stretch – a consequence of the 503 being originally designed with a column shift.

Later, the 503 received an anti-roll bar of Surtees’ own design, and the front disc brakes – although fitted many decades earlier – also owed their existence to the former F1 champion. His 507 had been the development vehicle for BMW’s plan to fit its cars with Dunlop discs. Like many of the 50-series cars, BEE 46 subsequently had vacuum-assisted discs retrofitted by BMW a few years after its manufacture as a result.

As with his 507, Surtees owned the 503 until his death. It was these BMWs’ ability to combine comfort with sporting appeal that he loved, and this car, peppered with traces of the man, still holds up to that brief remarkably well today. Although the 503 is built with the same quality as a drophead-coupé Mercedes-Benz or Bentley, BMW’s now famous driver-focused DNA is still detectable.

It’s as comfortable over bumps as you’d expect, but not via pillow-like springs. There is a degree of firmness in the secondary ride, but the BMW isolates its interior from rough surfaces incredibly well. The Surtees-modified front suspension allows it to turn in with a real sense of agility: this is a tonne-and-a-half car once there’s some fuel in it, but it is rewarding where a Bentley would be boring, and comfortable where an Alvis would be jarring.

And then there’s the engine… At start-up it’s a tame-sounding unit, as refined as an unevenly burbling crossplane V8 can ever be, and it’s at this moment the BMW feels most American in influence and intent. Although benefiting from all-aluminium construction, the V8 is otherwise of a simple pushrod design. But it’s small by US standards, and once on the move it is reassuringly European in character.

You find yourself holding the car in third while winding through the country lanes, using the engine’s torque from about 2800rpm to its redline, a range in which it is responsive and enjoyable if not truly fast. The sound builds to a mechanical thrum, but it never becomes raucous. It’s too large a car to really throw around these lanes at ten tenths, but the chassis enjoys being hustled with a bit of pace.

The front suspension is always utterly composed, and while the rear is much simpler in its specification, sheer weight seems to keep it in check – it doesn’t bounce around over poor surfaces like many a live axle. It’s the inherent stiffness of the car that provides a real sense of confidence, though, as further evidence of its over-engineering.

There is not a trace of scuttle shake, and, while the odd rattle of interior trim never slowed anyone down, the lack of sound and general sense of solidity along a typically poorly surfaced British road give an impression of complete control. The unassisted steering is unusual in design, and takes a bit of getting used to.

Presumably because of that segment-shaped steering gear – a set-up most commonly seen on ride-on lawnmowers today – it’s reasonably quick and light in the first movement off-centre, but becomes heavier and slower the more extreme the steering angle. It isn’t an issue once up to speed, when steering inputs become smaller. The promise of the system was to be play-free, and certainly it has less looseness than most contemporary steering boxes, with just the slightest hint detectable.

It’s a precise system overall, if not the most communicative. It may simply be because we’re having a bit more fun with this BMW than many 503 owners did. Not only does ‘our’ car have suspension improved by Surtees and those retrofitted brakes – which, incidentally, are very good by late-’50s standards – but BEE 46 also seems to be making more power than it should.

This time, however, it isn’t the work of the late motorsport hero. Surtees never modified the unit beyond adding a higher-flow fuel pump, but the compression of the engine is raised, and a rolling road has shown it to produce 155bhp – the power figure of a 507.

It seems this is how the car was ordered from the factory, because the speedometer is also a 507-spec item. A right-hand-drive 503 Cabriolet was already a special order, so presumably such an alteration was little extra effort. Today, the BMW is cared for by Michael Grenfell, who purchased the car three years after Surtees’ death at Bonhams, two years after the same sale house sold his 507.

As the road car with which Surtees was associated more than any other, his 507 broke the auction record for the model by a substantial margin, at £3.8m. Conversely, no photographs survive of him with the 503 – which seems almost fitting for one of BMW’s most forgotten cars.

“Surtees didn’t seem to care very much for cosmetics,” says Michael, who picked up a car with good bodywork, well-sorted suspension and a healthy engine (once it had been woken from three years of inactivity), but scruffy in some of its details. With its carpets replaced, the steering wheel and gearknob resurfaced and the chrome refreshed, the BMW now looks as good as when Surtees bought it in 1992.

Astoundingly, the bodywork and interior (bar that carpet) remain original.

“Surtees and Dr Bee were both very slight men,” says Michael, “that has probably helped keep the car in such good shape.”

Images: Tony Baker

Thanks to BMW Car Club GB and Classic and Sportscar