Welcome to Down On The Street, where we admire old vehicles found parked on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. There's been no shortage of BMWs in this series, but I've sort of overlooked the 5 and 7 series cars so far. No more! Today we'll look at one of the last of the E23s, a somewhat scuffed but still proud 735i, located in the post-late-50s landfill part of town, not far from the '66 Dodge A100 Sportsman.
Driving one of these things back in the 80s showed that you were serious. At $36,880 list (well over 75 grand- and climbing- in today's inflato-dollars), you could have bought nine brand-new Yugos and had enough left over for a couple of pretty clean used Datsun B210s. Tough decision!
Nowadays, these cars have depreciated down to about 2-3% of their original purchase price. Pretty good bang-for-buck, in terms of how much German engineering and sophistication you get for your money: a 182-horsepower six-cylinder engine, big brakes, leather, the works.