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?
There are only a handful of BMWs I’ve ever had any interest in, and the 850i is one of them. (The others are basically unobtainable: the M1, for price; and the Z1, because I live in North America.)
Savings account be damned, V12 for the win.
Picked the 850 because it has great lines and I’m not very good at making my own parts. Just what my barn needs, another broken project car…
I always loved the Bitter. Either one COULD destroy you but the Bitter is already ready to do that.
That Bitter is located about an hour away from where I’m sitting right now, but between the two of them, I’d be inclined to go to the opposite end of the country for the BMW. That was a legit halo car of the era (to me, at least). I’d estimate that taking care of the overheating/head gasket would probably take the price of entry up to that of the Bitter, but you’d have a complete and beautiful ride until the next thing breaks. With the Bitter, you’d just be getting started.
That SC looks rough – too Bitter a pill to swallow. You know it’s bad when I’m willing to double down on the Deutsch Dozen.
A few years back, there was an 850 at the local BMW dealer, used, with “1999” on the front windshield in big yellow numbers, covering the entirety of the windshield. My wife was in the car, and I saw that as we were driving past, and I did a hard right into the dealership. I said “For 2 grand, I don’t care what’s wrong with it, it’s mine!”
My wife looked at me and said “What’s wrong with you? It’s not 2 grand, it’s a 1999…”
I’m such a dreamer…
I think $1999 will get you new spark plugs.
I’d buy the 850 and drop in the roughest, coursest Chevy small-block that I can find. It will run far better than that V12!
LS swap all the things!
Well, if you’re gonna go that way, make it a big block 632 crate motor. With headers.
As Brian of Regular Car Reviews always says: On a Long enough timeline, everything gets an LS.
I’m a sucker for pop-up headlights, box-flaired wheel arches and a pillarless coupe. 850 all the way.
I’m going to go with the 850. With the delta in cost, it’s maybe just enough to get the engine gone over thoroughly. Or, and I know this is sacrilege, maybe swap in a Coyote V-8. (Yes, I know the LS swap is what everyone defaults to, but I like to be different)
The SC needs too much work and is already over 4K more expensive.
This may be one of those bizarre situations in which a V-12 BMW is the sensible option.
Both are going to be expensive to run, but one of them is almost there and is cheaper.
I picked the Bitter. Why? I’d oddly feel less bad about bolting the body to some 80’s-90’s 4×4 truck chassis and taking it off road.
The 850 is just such a gorgeous car that I’m willing to put in the work to fix the issues.
I can picture just cruising and enjoying life, just like Diplo in this video
Nope. I’m not choosing between stepping on a LEGO or stepping on a LEGO with my other foot.
The pain usually goes away after a bit.
But yes, you have the correct take today.
My understanding is the best raison d’etre for buying a BMW 7- or 8-series is to get hold of the engine for shoving into your kit car. Then sell the de-engined husk to whoever most recently discovered Braille parking.
That still leaves you with an inanimate kit car taking up space in the garage, but it has an engine now.
On a stand.
Yikes, a bummer Bimmer or. Bitter lemon? What a choice. I’ll take the sour SC today, but with plenty of reservations.
I like the idea of the Bitter, but based on those photos there’s a 75% chance I’m going to end up at the bottom of a well being told to put the lotion in the basket, so BMW.
Love the 8, but the Bitter will likely need less work? Maybe? I don’t know, the white interior reeled me in and I cannot resist it.
I always thought it would be neat to own a Bitter, and believe it or not I’ve known two completely separate guys who’ve owned two completely separate ones. But dear God not this one. We have no idea from the photos what it needs (it’s in a storage unit at “27k miles” for a reason), but whatever it does will be nearly impossible to source. Parts for an engine that was never sold here in any guise and sheet metal that essentially doesn’t exist outside of the complete cars you can find. And $11,000?? Hell to the no. They’re pretty things when they’re nice, so wait until you find a nice one. But there are scant few nice ones, and I say this as a fan.
I will take whatever heartache that V12 offers me, nine ways to Sunday over the Bitter.
So it’s a choice between the limited production boutique car that has almost zero curb recognition/appeal, hasn’t run in years, is in very marginal condition, virtually impossible to get parts for and has almost zero support online and the aging, already overheating V12 halo car that’s know to be a maintenance nightmare. Yikes.
I’ll go with the Bimmer because it look far better and once I get elbows deep into the headgasket replacement and realize I’m never going to get it working right, at least I can probably make the 6 grad back by parting it out.
It’s only money….
I’d take the 850, knowing full well it would bankrupt me. It would be fun while it lasted. Except for the slushbox.
I’ve seen a couple of Bitters, and both had rust, as this one does. One of the penalties of small-volume manufacture is that rot prevention can be sketchy. A shame, as the Opel bits are really quite nice.
In the end, would it cost more to keep the Bimmer running or rehab the Bitter? Not a great choice, finance-wise.
So: neither, thank you.
No “Both” choice?
I’ll pick the Bitter SC ’cause I have seen no documented cases of them turning into bottomless money pits.
When there’s no parts available, it’s really hard to spend much money on the thing.
Yeah handmade low volume stuff mixed with GM catalog parts, it would still be my choice. You could fake it, do a good job and like two people would know.
Yeah – GM’s European catalog. I definitely like oddball cars, and as far as sourcing parts, not much scares me, I’m fairly clever and have a lot of resources available to me. But one of the guys I knew that had one told me the Bitter community is not very well organized and on top of that even kind of fractured, and whatever resources as far as interchanges there have been are apparently kept close to the vest. There’s one guy making a few reproduction parts but with an audience that small they’re expensive and you have to wonder why bother.
I was able to get the Bitter SC into NAPA’s parts cataloging but of all the paper catalogs we had over the decades, the only one I ever saw that made any reference to the car at all was Timken, for front wheel bearings. I offered to my friend to help try to catalog some of the stuff he was able to document, but we didn’t really get anywhere. Years later he sold his out of frustration.
Both are equally terrible choices. So I’ll take both.
Oh God is there a neither choice. Both have serious issues. A rare barn find or a high mileage bmw v12 in white with known engine issues. Ooff.
I know it would bankrupt me, but I’ve ALWAYS had a thing for the 850i. I’m sure I could fix whatever ails it, but it might take me years to get to that point at my current rate of project completion. It’d look pretty sitting in the shop though.
Yikes. Which bad choice to make? I guess the bimmer because parts are more common and the bank would believe it’s a real car when I keep getting loans to fix it?