Last month, visitors to the Oslo Motor Show had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to watch the world’s most expensive BMW, Elvis Presley’s historical BMW 507. Elvis Presley’s historical BMW 507 was on display at the Oslo Motor Show!
When the «King of Rock & Roll», Elvis Presley, who had his breakthrough in 1956, had to serve his mandatory military service in Germany in 1958, he allowed himself to be seduced by both Priscilla, whom he later married, and a BMW 507 Roadster 1957 model, which he brought back across the Atlantic.
Initially, Elvis wanted a Porsche Spider like the one James Dean had previously owned, but this was impossible to obtain, and the choice finally fell on the BMW 507 with chassis number 70079, a car previously owned and driven by racing driver Hans Stuck.
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Elvis Presley’s Historical BMW 507 On Display at the Oslo Motor Show! read on….
After a few years, Elvis sold the car, and it was eventually forgotten. However, several decades later, a treasure hunt started for the legendary car, and fortunately it was found – albeit in poor condition. The new owner, inspired by the Elvis Presley hit “Return to Sender” decided to sell it to BMW in 2014.
The BMW Classic Group started the restoration and found, among other things, that the car had a total of 8 layers of different colors. The original engine, gearbox and rear axles could not be found and had to be rebuilt. The engine was rebuilt with original parts and again the car was equipped with a 3.2-liter engine with 150 horsepower.
The interior was in a terrible condition and the original seats could not be saved. In order for this to be as authentic as possible, they had to build the seats completely from scratch, in the old, traditional way.
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Finally, the car was painted in the white color it had when Elvis himself bought the car in 1958. With a price tag for the car and restoration of around NOK 180 million (USD 18 million), this is one of the most valuable cars in BMW’s collection today.
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We asked Tommy Larsen, project manager at Oslo Motor Show and MC Fair, how he managed to bring the car to Norway and the Oslo Motor Show.
“Oslo Motor Show has for a number of years had a close collaboration with BMW Classic in Germany. We saw the car on a visit to Germany a few years ago. The car is very rarely shown at exhibitions outside Germany, but we were lucky to borrow the car for the Oslo exhibition. The delegates who accompanied the car from Germany and participated at the show were Norbert Knerr from BMW Welt and Prince Leopold von Bayern.
The possibility to display the car is based on a long and trusting collaboration with BMW Classic over many years and it took time before they decided to lend us their perhaps most valuable car.
The car was definitely an attraction.”
Elvis Presley’s Historical BMW 507 On Display at the Oslo Motor Show! written by Tor Kjolberg