I like the camerawork at the beginning but I wish there were more of it with the restored interior in the second part so we see all its beautiful details.
BMW 507 along with Mercedes 300 SL may be the most aesthetically beautiful cars ever built. It was fun to watch. I look forward to watching more videos like this from Autogefühl.
Excellent report!!! What a story, really unbelivable to restore such an rusty car. But I'm wondering about such car collectors which do not do everything to keep the car status as good as possible...Cheers DrDuu
I very much appreciate that you are doing some non-review videos, like this one and the one on the visit to BMW Welt. Thank you, it adds some variety to your channel.
Wow, what a restoration project that was. It's a pleasure to see at least some of it documented on video - and your narration was great, Thomas. In my opinion, the 507 and the E-Type Jaguar are the best convertible designs in history - hands down. Question - did Jack donate the car to the BMW Museum, or did someone else buy it first? Because he said he really couldn't afford the kind of restoration that would do the car justice.
I got the impression that he seemed more concerned with the historical significance of the car, rather than just making money with it's sale. He had other high dollar cars in the collection as you said, so I'm inclined to think his objective was to just allow other people to enjoy it for years to come. It's just speculation, but he may have been having medical problems at the time as well, putting him into a much different frame of mind as to legacy and piece of mind. It's such a shame he didn't get to see it after the restoration.
Amazing restoration and great video as always. Sad it's owner didn't get to see it finished. Beautiful car the 507. Sadly like many classics, so expensive nowadays (and no doubt increasing by the day). So many great cars are bought as investments to stand in a garage until their stock increases such that the owner will sell for a large profit rather than being used and appreciated properly, which is such a shame. Watch Harry's Garage fro see someone who isn't afraid to get his cars dirty now and again and enjoys them as originally intended.
Elvis may have owned the serial number but that is no longer the car he owned. At the very least they could have kept his red if they are going to use his name to promote it.
Thankyou Thomas and Autogefuehl, for an educational look inside the BMW restoration process. A labor of love, by artisans in many areas of Automotive Discipline. Is a service like this available to BMW customers, with less unique cars that require restoration? Or is this service only carried out on the exceptionally rare cars going into BMW's museum? This is a fascinating look inside on of the worlds premium Automotive Manufacturers.
thanks! indeed the manufacturers almost all offer those services to the customers these days ... because it is about a lot of money. You can buy "brand new old" parts from works and also get restoration services. Therefore there is BMW Group classic
If this isn't the prettiest bmw, then it's definitely the Z8 that was based on it. Hell I think the Z8 is one of the prettiest cars in general. Also that guy is awesome for offering to give it to bmw to show them in their museum for the world to see. My respects to you sir.
As usual, a great video production. What a sublime looking car. I had never seen one. I agree with Namn below. Interesting to compare it with the MG's, Austin Healeys and Corvettes of the same era. Elvis had good taste. Cheers and thanks from Greg in Darwin, in the Northern Territory, Australia.
I am glad that Elvis Presley*s BMW 507 is back home in a museum, where it can be admired by a lot of people, now why, at BMW headquaters , they couldn*t make the engine that goes there after all that*s the place where the BMW was born
Some viewing angles of the car made it look like tiny diecast lol. I kept saying to myself, is that thing real? It looks like a toy. I've never seen this car before. It's beautiful. I never thought BMW ever made cars with emotion
I believe changing the color to white was a mistake. If a large part of the value comes from being owned by Elvis, then taking into consideration what Elvis would have chosen had he had it restored should count for something!! He most likely would want his car to look like his car, not look like what some team white-coats thinks is "correct". Clearly, if it took a team of experts to figure out it was white, then someone (Elvis) went to some lengths to completely get rid of the white! What a bloody shame. Over restored anyway, so who the hell cares if Elvis once touched it. "It" is gone.
Did they bother to have the car body and dimensions 3D scanned? This is the best way to preserve what used to be designed and built by hand before the digital age.
That specific section was left unrestored to show the paint history of the car. BMW very carefully removed each layer to see what colors it had been from Sept 13, 1957 when it was built until June 15th, 1968 when Castor acquired the car (he never repainted it). They wanted to preserve that history in an accessible but not overtly visible location.
I understand why the restoration happened but personally I think it looked better when it had its patina in tact. Maybe it just looks more like what I imagine my red convertible BMW looks like. Then again I like to think my GF looks like a prettier version of Cheryl Teigs. Don't wake me. This dream is awesome.
To get something with the same charms that would not throw you upside down, the Miata is the only solution. I wish you could modify things legally in Europe. No, you cannot. So the 1.8 liter engine, on the other hand, handicaps the performance but also protects you against the insane insurance costs. the trick is to look cool and keep the polish at 101%.
Evan Patterson this is exactly the color that Elvis bought. feather white. the red paint came afterwards, after he was sick of girls leaving their phone numbers with lipstick on the fenders.
The car is not worth the paint that's on it just because BMW throws everything away but the frame and put brand new stuff on it doesn't make it a restoration and makes it a rebuild and frankly I'm offended I watched
that's not elvis's car his car is still in the shop scrap bin ! they just about replaced all the parts . now the frame and some of the outer skins are the same but they cut off more than they left on so I wouldn't exactly call it his car .
The seats were dark red leather but they changed them to black and white. Most of the car is new and not the original car. I think the restoration could have been more sympathetic to the spirit of Elvis. It's all a bit soulless.
To those not extremely familiar with the true history, it's understandable that so many comments are mistaken. The car was returned to the color scheme of when it was new (and when Elvis first received it...lots of photos of it white with Elvis alongside it, before having it painted red). The owner in the 60's replaced the entire interior with something from who knows where and made some modifications to the body (eg, filled in the vent screen in front of the windshield) and changed the drivetrain and engine to Chevy components. The last owner (Castor) was more interested in the car's Hans Stuck (Sr) race history than the time with Elvis and wanted BMW to return it to its factory original color scheme and configuration. That was important to him and BMW followed his request. As with his other 507, there were some panels that decayed too far to repair (eg, gas tank, misc other bits). So like any restoration of very old cars that have sat for a long time (40 years in this case), there's going to be areas that require replacement whether it's whole panels or new sections grafted onto existing ones. Castor was a very good friend of mine and I assisted with the whole BMW restoration arrangement while his health declined. So I think I can speak as well as anybody to the background of this car's history as well as his other 507.
@@rongilmartin7379 So Castor owned two 507s? Did BMW restore both of them? I'm asking because I watched the long video (42 minutes), and in a few scenes, I saw two 507s next to each other. Many thanks.
@@finnmccool684 Castor owned the Elvis 507 since 1968 and the other (blue) 507 since 1974. Both were completely restored by BMW Classic in 2014-2016 and returned to Pebble Beach in Aug 2016 for the 100th anniversary of BMW, following which the Elvis 507 returned to Germany. There are good backstory articles on both cars in the October and December 2016 issues of Bimmer magazine.
The dark red seats in the Elvis car weren't even 507 seats (neither was the dash, the engine, etc, etc). BMW restored the car back to the way it left the factory in 1957.
"any tiny damage" ... the car was rebuilt. ALL OF IT. What kind of possible damage short of it being taken to the scrap yard, could it possibly take, that it would stop this? Tell me, i'll go back in freaking time to smash the hood just so i can see it stop. So stupid.
I saw the "restoration" process, it was a hack job. There's a thing called restomodding, that, should've been the path taken. The red color of the car meant something. I don't care if it was Elvis' car, i care that incompetence robbed the real car of its past. It should have been left alone with all its past, the bad, and the good. This is stupid.
Sorry, but you're mistaken...those old seats and door panels were NEVER offered in the 507. They're replacements put in by the same person who put in Chevy drivetrain and drag raced this particular car in the 60's.
Why didn't they kept it in red? The colour of the interiour is also red.... Now restored, a very good job indeed, it's now not in the colour on wich Elvis had driven it. The interiour is now dull black and white and the structure of the seats are also different. So to my view it is not an "Elvis car" anymore....
It's painful looking at endless shots of that decomposed car. I can't believe the state it was left in, not to mention the lack of original engine and front axle. "I always planned to restore it" Castor said. Yeah right...
rtp4u2 not the original color was white , Elvis painted in red because he was tired to find kiss lipstick mark on the car all the time , that's why he painted in red !!
totaly bullshit.on the internet you can find that was 2 bmw.one white secound red.but here they say thay is just one repaind in red from white.but why then when he scraced chasy numbers they was red to? this i found on internet"The white BMW 507 caused a lot of problems for Elvis with some female fans writing greetings to Elvis, telephone-numbers, and 'I love you's' with pens and lipstick. Impossible to be removed completely. There is story that Elvis gave away his 507 to Ursula Andress when filming Fun in Acapulco. This is not true. Elvis never owned either car, they were both on lease and were returned to BMW Glöckl" so what is truh now?
Typical of soulless BMW philosophies. Take a car with unique provenance and history and essentially throw away every remaining element of that provenance and history, to recreate merely a stock although rare car of much less importance! Only Germans would think in this robotic manner!
This is the best documentary I have ever seen, about the restoration of a car! Thank you, Thomas!
And what a car that is!
😎✌️
Beautiful restoration of this 507 Roadster.
If only new bmws looked like that.
I like the camerawork at the beginning but I wish there were more of it with the restored interior in the second part so we see all its beautiful details.
BMW 507 along with Mercedes 300 SL may be the most aesthetically beautiful cars ever built. It was fun to watch. I look forward to watching more videos like this from Autogefühl.
+Ahmet Akif Yilmaz 👌
+Ahmet Akif Yilmaz 👌
The MOST BEAUTIFUL BMW ever, and one of the most beautiful cars ever.
This is excellent! Thank you autogefühl! My favorite car of all time!
thanks! yeah its really beautiful :)
Excellent report!!! What a story, really unbelivable to restore such an rusty car. But I'm wondering about such car collectors which do not do everything to keep the car status as good as possible...Cheers DrDuu
thanks! Always a question of budget :)
I very much appreciate that you are doing some non-review videos, like this one and the one on the visit to BMW Welt. Thank you, it adds some variety to your channel.
+Kuryan T tHanks for noticing m8!
Thoroughly enjoyable production -thanks for the history lesson - the KING would have enjoyed seeing the repairs!
+Bob Crouch thanks and spread the word for us!
Well Done Guys...🙏 Love from India
Wow, what a restoration project that was. It's a pleasure to see at least some of it documented on video - and your narration was great, Thomas. In my opinion, the 507 and the E-Type Jaguar are the best convertible designs in history - hands down. Question - did Jack donate the car to the BMW Museum, or did someone else buy it first? Because he said he really couldn't afford the kind of restoration that would do the car justice.
appreciated! Hm good question, its just the question if BMW paid him or not
I got the impression that he seemed more concerned with the historical significance of the car, rather than just making money with it's sale. He had other high dollar cars in the collection as you said, so I'm inclined to think his objective was to just allow other people to enjoy it for years to come. It's just speculation, but he may have been having medical problems at the time as well, putting him into a much different frame of mind as to legacy and piece of mind. It's such a shame he didn't get to see it after the restoration.
yeah indeed
Amazing restoration and great video as always. Sad it's owner didn't get to see it finished. Beautiful car the 507. Sadly like many classics, so expensive nowadays (and no doubt increasing by the day). So many great cars are bought as investments to stand in a garage until their stock increases such that the owner will sell for a large profit rather than being used and appreciated properly, which is such a shame. Watch Harry's Garage fro see someone who isn't afraid to get his cars dirty now and again and enjoys them as originally intended.
thanks andrew !
One of the sexiest roadsters of all time for me, 1 of these and 1 62-63 corvette roadster please! 😀
very interesting story and what make it more interesting is your calme voice
+Ayouni Reda ❤️
excellent film..beautiful car..fantastic commentary..well done autogefuhl and Thomas..more please
thanks buddy!
Beautiful car and as always another great video, very detailed.
appreciated !
So, basically you're restoring it the way it looked two years before Elvis purchased it.
This is how a video is made! you guys rock!
thanks so much, keep tuning in!
Elvis may have owned the serial number but that is no longer the car he owned. At the very least they could have kept his red if they are going to use his name to promote it.
Thankyou Thomas and Autogefuehl, for an educational look inside the BMW restoration process. A labor of love, by artisans in many areas of Automotive Discipline.
Is a service like this available to BMW customers, with less unique cars that require restoration? Or is this service only carried out on the exceptionally rare cars going into BMW's museum?
This is a fascinating look inside on of the worlds premium Automotive Manufacturers.
thanks! indeed the manufacturers almost all offer those services to the customers these days ... because it is about a lot of money. You can buy "brand new old" parts from works and also get restoration services. Therefore there is BMW Group classic
If this isn't the prettiest bmw, then it's definitely the Z8 that was based on it. Hell I think the Z8 is one of the prettiest cars in general.
Also that guy is awesome for offering to give it to bmw to show them in their museum for the world to see. My respects to you sir.
+Sandouras totally
Just went further into the video. Jack nooooooo. ;;
+Sandouras :(
Z8 has a timeless Design
Sandouras
Honestly has been my dream car for years.
As usual, a great video production. What a sublime looking car. I had never seen one. I agree with Namn below. Interesting to compare it with the MG's, Austin Healeys and Corvettes of the same era. Elvis had good taste.
Cheers and thanks from Greg in Darwin, in the Northern Territory, Australia.
cheers!
The car is interesting, but the video is terrific. Great job on telling the story.
Thanks!!
I am glad that Elvis Presley*s BMW 507 is back home in a museum, where it can be admired by a lot of people, now why, at BMW headquaters , they couldn*t make the engine that goes there after all that*s the place where the BMW was born
15:11 They scratched the new paint with an electrical screwdriver LOL. I guess even experts can make mistakes...
Well spottet!
this is a documentary class video. good job!
Was in monterey just a couple days before the event. Wish I could have delayed my trip a couple of days
11:09 ... That blow of the dust... is just... ahhrrr.. ! :D
It's just like the beginning of something... :)
=)
i like the vid. amazing presentation
thx !
Some viewing angles of the car made it look like tiny diecast lol. I kept saying to myself, is that thing real? It looks like a toy. I've never seen this car before. It's beautiful. I never thought BMW ever made cars with emotion
i was thinking the same, the red one in the studio looked so toy-alike :)
awesome work👌
great work..
That's truly stunning!!!!! Wonder how much that's worth now
+Fernando Barbosa priceless for sure
I believe changing the color to white was a mistake. If a large part of the value comes from being owned by Elvis, then taking into consideration what Elvis would have chosen had he had it restored should count for something!! He most likely would want his car to look like his car, not look like what some team white-coats thinks is "correct".
Clearly, if it took a team of experts to figure out it was white, then someone (Elvis) went to some lengths to completely get rid of the white!
What a bloody shame.
Over restored anyway, so who the hell cares if Elvis once touched it. "It" is gone.
Moe Sizlac this is exactly the color that Elvis had ordered. feather white. the car was repainted red afterwards.
Did they bother to have the car body and dimensions 3D scanned? This is the best way to preserve what used to be designed and built by hand before the digital age.
Turn down the noise and enjoy
Pure beauty
no...your pire beauty.
Amazing work. But beside engine issue they didn't keep original design in leather upholstery and bodywork screws were not original type neither.
Lovely job but wouldn't it worth more in Elvis red? I think white is nicer for this car though.
16:32 why is that corner unfinished( both sides ) ? and the edge of the right side of it is not very well finished also.
That specific section was left unrestored to show the paint history of the car. BMW very carefully removed each layer to see what colors it had been from Sept 13, 1957 when it was built until June 15th, 1968 when Castor acquired the car (he never repainted it). They wanted to preserve that history in an accessible but not overtly visible location.
I understand why the restoration happened but personally I think it looked better when it had its patina in tact. Maybe it just looks more like what I imagine my red convertible BMW looks like. Then again I like to think my GF looks like a prettier version of Cheryl Teigs. Don't wake me. This dream is awesome.
To get something with the same charms that would not throw you upside down, the Miata is the only solution.
I wish you could modify things legally in Europe. No, you cannot. So the 1.8 liter engine, on the other hand, handicaps the performance but also protects you against the insane insurance costs.
the trick is to look cool and keep the polish at 101%.
The king would want it in red
why did they do it back to white, they should have done it the way The King had it all red on red.
+Evan Patterson did u listen to the whole video?
Evan Patterson this is exactly the color that Elvis bought. feather white. the red paint came afterwards, after he was sick of girls leaving their phone numbers with lipstick on the fenders.
sometimes I wish that I was born on the late 30s so I would be an adult on the 50's and 60's
not bad to be born after the war though.
It is a very pretty car.
The only 2 door 5 series ever
The car is not worth the paint that's on it just because BMW throws everything away but the frame and put brand new stuff on it doesn't make it a restoration and makes it a rebuild and frankly I'm offended I watched
What is the phosphoric agent at 14:00 ?
An amazing restoration BUT to say it’s elvis,s car is a bit of a long shot as nothing was left of the original was their
that's not elvis's car his car is still in the shop scrap bin ! they just about replaced all the parts . now the frame and some of the outer skins are the same but they cut off more than they left on so I wouldn't exactly call it his car .
by Definition it´s the VIN which counts...
The seats were dark red leather but they changed them to black and white. Most of the car is new and not the original car. I think the restoration could have been more sympathetic to the spirit of Elvis. It's all a bit soulless.
To those not extremely familiar with the true history, it's understandable that so many comments are mistaken. The car was returned to the color scheme of when it was new (and when Elvis first received it...lots of photos of it white with Elvis alongside it, before having it painted red). The owner in the 60's replaced the entire interior with something from who knows where and made some modifications to the body (eg, filled in the vent screen in front of the windshield) and changed the drivetrain and engine to Chevy components.
The last owner (Castor) was more interested in the car's Hans Stuck (Sr) race history than the time with Elvis and wanted BMW to return it to its factory original color scheme and configuration. That was important to him and BMW followed his request.
As with his other 507, there were some panels that decayed too far to repair (eg, gas tank, misc other bits). So like any restoration of very old cars that have sat for a long time (40 years in this case), there's going to be areas that require replacement whether it's whole panels or new sections grafted onto existing ones.
Castor was a very good friend of mine and I assisted with the whole BMW restoration arrangement while his health declined. So I think I can speak as well as anybody to the background of this car's history as well as his other 507.
@@rongilmartin7379 So Castor owned two 507s? Did BMW restore both of them? I'm asking because I watched the long video (42 minutes), and in a few scenes, I saw two 507s next to each other. Many thanks.
@@finnmccool684 Castor owned the Elvis 507 since 1968 and the other (blue) 507 since 1974. Both were completely restored by BMW Classic in 2014-2016 and returned to Pebble Beach in Aug 2016 for the 100th anniversary of BMW, following which the Elvis 507 returned to Germany. There are good backstory articles on both cars in the October and December 2016 issues of Bimmer magazine.
The dark red seats in the Elvis car weren't even 507 seats (neither was the dash, the engine, etc, etc). BMW restored the car back to the way it left the factory in 1957.
@@rongilmartin7379 Many thanks for the great information. Do you know if they kept the body panels on the Elvis car? Thanks again.
"any tiny damage" ... the car was rebuilt. ALL OF IT. What kind of possible damage short of it being taken to the scrap yard, could it possibly take, that it would stop this? Tell me, i'll go back in freaking time to smash the hood just so i can see it stop. So stupid.
I saw the "restoration" process, it was a hack job. There's a thing called restomodding, that, should've been the path taken. The red color of the car meant something. I don't care if it was Elvis' car, i care that incompetence robbed the real car of its past. It should have been left alone with all its past, the bad, and the good. This is stupid.
waaaaaaa
Original chesterfield style seats & door panels were way prettier than this black and white new interior.
Sorry, but you're mistaken...those old seats and door panels were NEVER offered in the 507. They're replacements put in by the same person who put in Chevy drivetrain and drag raced this particular car in the 60's.
bmw 507..mercedes sl 300 and 190sl..ferrari 250 cars..aston martin db4 zagato..art or cars anyone?
Alfa Romeo 2600 Spider 1962, Fiat 124 Spider 1966, Volvo P1800 1966, BMW 503 Coupe 1956 & BMW 2800 CS 1968 !!!
Tonight's car but they threw away the original sheet metal lost all its history with Elvis now
Why didn't they kept it in red? The colour of the interiour is also red.... Now restored, a very good job indeed, it's now not in the colour on wich Elvis had driven it. The interiour is now dull black and white and the structure of the seats are also different. So to my view it is not an "Elvis car" anymore....
It's painful looking at endless shots of that decomposed car. I can't believe the state it was left in, not to mention the lack of original engine and front axle.
"I always planned to restore it" Castor said. Yeah right...
Steven Farrington
ive seen one :P 600.000 dollar was the price :O and thats just not in my budget xD
There should kept it just in that shape it was, now its just a new build car
That car has not much left from the Elvis age. Over restauration.
these 507's are maybe more beautiful than the 300SL's ....what an amazing era
Can someone explain me why the Z8 is so expensive?
wonder why it was painted white , the original car was red
rtp4u2 not the original color was white , Elvis painted in red because he was tired to find kiss lipstick mark on the car all the time , that's why he painted in red !!
but,it's a copy.
Bull crap it's a replica because of how they rebuilt it.
totaly bullshit.on the internet you can find that was 2 bmw.one white secound red.but here they say thay is just one repaind in red from white.but why then when he scraced chasy numbers they was red to? this i found on internet"The white BMW 507 caused a lot of problems for Elvis with some female fans writing greetings to Elvis, telephone-numbers, and 'I love you's' with pens and lipstick. Impossible to be removed completely.
There is story that Elvis gave away his 507 to Ursula Andress when filming Fun in Acapulco. This is not true. Elvis never owned either car, they were both on lease and were returned to BMW Glöckl" so what is truh now?
andrew svitec
Typical of soulless BMW philosophies.
Take a car with unique provenance and history and essentially throw away every remaining element of that provenance and history, to recreate merely a stock although rare car of much less importance!
Only Germans would think in this robotic manner!
bmw13