I have spent only an extremely limited time in a BMW E23 7 Series, in large part because it was my old boss Patrick George’s car and it if wasn’t broken it was usually getting itself ready to break. The car didn’t drive much when I knew it, but it was transformative.
There was something about the airiness of it, the bleep-bloop red electronic lights, the all-red-leather seats that made it feel like I was in another place, another time. It was a car that didn’t know the Stasi but was from around the same time. Little secure luxuries set against a world of conspiracies, secrets, looming fears. Production ran from 1977 to 1986.
It was the kind of car that made you fall in love with the world, all while keeping it at arm’s length. Bitter sorrows happened out there, the interior of that 733i told you. This was mostly just lies. It was also the kind of car that got you kicked out of the Battery Tunnel.
Good car for an X-Files homage music video, the new video from Japanese Breakfast:
No surprise there is strong car content in the Be Sweet video. Japanese Breakfast songs and videos always have some moment of clawed-up privacy of East Coast driving. There is also the first-gen Firebird standing in Road Head:
And Michelle Zauner with a guitar solo on a Peterbilt in Everybody Wants To Love You:
I won’t attempt to make an extended connection between Be Sweet’s lyrics and wanting your BMW to be kind to you, to not break down, to at least make it up to you, but it’s a good song and a good match of car to music.