BMW Recreates Stunning 50-Year-Old Concept

BMW is no stranger to the annual Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este. The German automaker has a history of unveiling stunning one-off concepts at this event, and typically they pay homage to past BMW icons. This year, however, BMW did something a little different by re-creating a concept car it originally unveiled back in 1970 at the Geneva Motor Show. Introducing the BMW Garmisch. But what's a Garmisch? It's the name of a German ski town that hosted the 1936 Winter Olympics and is actually fairly close to BMW's hometown of Munich.

The original BMW Garmisch concept was designed by none other than Marcello Gandini for Bertone. Gandini is the wedge design pioneer who penned the likes of the Lamborghini Miura, Countach, and Lancia Stratos, among many others. Starting with a BMW 2002tii, Gandini and his team spent four months altering the coupe's design and the result was pretty incredible.

To celebrate the five decades that have since passed and Gandini himself, BMW figured it was time to recreate the original concept with this faithful recreation.

"Marcello Gandini to me is one of the grandmasters of car design, and his cars always have been an important source of inspiration for my work," says Adrian van Hooydonk, senior vice president of BMW Design. "Building the BMW Garmisch for a second time gave us the opportunity to pay tribute to Mr. Gandini, recall one of his lesser-known cars and highlight Bertone's stylistic influence on the evolution of BMW design."

BMW even used an original 2002 chassis as a starting point for the new car in order to create the best replicate possible.