B Is For: 1984 Bitter SC vs 1992 BMW 850i

Good morning! It’s day two of our trip down Alphabet Street, and we’ve got two big, broken German coupes to check out. One you probably know, the other you may not. But that’s all right; our goal here is not only entertainment, but education as well.

Yesterday we started out with Alfa versus Audi, and it was a red-letter day for the itsy-bitsy Spider. You preferred it nearly two to one over the fast but sketchy S4 Cabrio. It sounds like the Alfa’s simplicity and friendliness won out over the Audi’s sheer brute force.

I agree wholeheartedly. I have a soft spot for Audis older than this, but anything this new is just a pain in the ass I don’t need. Besides, I’ve never owned an Italian car, and I think a cheery little Alfa Spider would be a good choice. It would complement my MG well, I think. And for that price? Come on. Good thing it’s three thousand miles away.

For these alphabetical pairings, I’m going to try to keep the cars as comparable as I can, but sometimes I don’t think it’s going to be possible. Today’s contenders line up pretty well; they’re both low-production grand touring coupes from Germany, with cushy interiors and pop-up headlights, but one is nearly twice the price of the other, and has half as many cylinders. But will its relative simplicity and rarity give it the edge? Let’s take a look at them and find out.

1984 Bitter SC – $11,000

Engine/drivetrain: 3.0-liter overhead cam inline 6, three-speed automatic, RWD

Location: Lancaster, PA

Odometer reading: 27,000 miles

Operational status: Unknown, but I’d wager it’s been sitting a while

It seems to be the dream of retired racing drivers to start their own car companies: Enzo Ferrari did it, and so did Carroll Shelby. And you can add Erich Bitter to that list as well. The German driver-turned-entrepreneur worked with Intermeccanica in Italy before forming his own company, Bitter Automotive. The first Bitter model was the CD, a gorgeous Chevy V8-powered fastback that sold in the dozens. The second was this car, the SC, built on the Opel Senator/Monza platform. Bitter sold a whopping 461 of these.

Under the SC’s long hood is a fuel-injected Opel inline six, displacing either 3.0 or 3.9 liters. The seller states that this is the 3.0-liter model. It drives the rear wheels through a three-speed automatic, also an Opel design. Last week, when I had this idea, I had found another SC for sale up in Canada, in better condition, with a five-speed manual, but the ad seems to have disappeared. So we’ll have to make do with this automatic version. The seller gives no indication of its mechanical condition, but judging by the dust on it, I’d imagine it will need some refurbishing.

The Bitter SC was designed as a luxurious grand tourer, so it’s comfortable and plush inside. It looks a lot like a contemporary Maserati inside, actually. It’s hard to tell with cars that have been sitting a long time what sort of condition the interior is really in – how much of what you see is damage, and how much is just grime? The driver’s seat has a few battle scars, it looks like, but the rest of the interior just looks dirty.

It’s hard to tell from these dark storage-unit photos, but it looks a lot like a Ferrari 400/412 on the outside. It’s a nice style, but very dated nowadays. There are a few minor rust spots, but overall it looks good. The front bumper appears to be lying on the ground in front of the car. That, like a few other aspects of this car, needs explaining before you shell out eleven grand and call a tow company.

1992 BMW 850i – $6,900

Engine/drivetrain: 5.0-liter overhead cam V12, four-speed automatic, RWD

Location: Berkeley, CA

Odometer reading: 156,000 miles

Operational status: Runs, but overheats – suspected bad head gasket

BMW’s celebrated 6 Series coupe was one of the Bitter SC’s main competitors, with its inline six and sprightly performance. But its successor, the 8 Series, was a bigger, fancier, and heavier car, not as light on its feet as the 6. To move that extra weight down the road, the 8 Series came with either a 4.0 liter V8, or, as we have here, a 5.0 liter V12.

BMW employed the “Doublemint” strategy when designing its V12; it’s basically two inline sixes in a trench coat pretending to be one engine. Each bank of six cylinders has its own fuel rail, distributor, and throttle body. Of course, that means there are twice as many things to potentially go wrong with it; these cars are known to be finicky and maintenance-intensive. This one has had a bunch of recent work, and it starts up and runs fine, but it overheats. The seller thinks it has a blown head gasket. They’re including the parts to fix it, but looking at this engine bay, I can’t imagine it’s an easy task.

This car has 156,000 miles on it, but you’d never know it from looking at the interior. Apart from a little wear on the driver’s seat and a misaligned glovebox lid, it looks practically new inside. BMW interiors from this era are nice places to be, very driver-focused and no-nonsense, but cars of this era are always let down by those big, cheesy early airbag steering wheels. It just doesn’t look like a suitable helm for a car that cost eighty grand new.

It’s a good-looking car, and another one of those cars that has more presence in person than photographs suggest. White is a surprisingly good color for it, too; it shows off the shape well. It looks clean, but the panel gaps around the front bumper don’t look quite right, like maybe it got a little bump in front. It’s the kind of thing I wouldn’t even bother to call out on a Hyundai Accent or something, but this is no Hyundai Accent.

It’s an old joke that the purchase price of a cheap old luxury car is just a down payment, and that is absolutely the case here. Neither one of these is something you can drive home in. And in either case, it’s going to be a labor of love. Which one would you rather revive: the ultra-rare boutique classic, or the ultra-complicated twelve-cylinder exotic?