Bahia Red over Black leatherette Β· Matching numbers Β· Single owner 37 years Β· Barcelona, Spain
This car came to me through a friend of a friend in Stuttgart in the summer of 1989. I was 34. I did not have the money. I borrowed half of it and paid it back over four years. What I received in exchange was the measure of every other car I have driven since β and I have driven many.
It is a 2.7 Touring, which means it lacks the fibreglass bumpers and the ducktail of the Sport β but it retains the RS engine, the thin chrome bumpers, the tin script badge on the engine lid, and the weight advantage that made the RS the RS. It is also, in my view, the more honest automobile. It is not a racing car dressed for the road. It is a road car built to the standard of a racing car.
I drove it every year from 1989 to 2014. Every summer, across the Pyrenees between Spain and France, the car never once failed to start, never left me stranded, and never let me feel that I had made anything less than the right decision. In 2014, when the roads became too crowded and I became too cautious, I stopped driving it and began preserving it instead. It has been properly stored since then β properly, not mothballed.
The engine is correct to the car. The gearbox is original. The bodywork has no previous accident damage β I have the full service and repair history to confirm it. The paint is original to the car and has been professionally maintained. There is patina. I am not selling you a restored automobile. I am selling you a survivor.
I am selling because I am 70 years old and I know, honestly, that the right next chapter for this car is with someone who will drive it. That is the only obligation I am placing on you. Drive it.