BMW 3.0 CSL

The long version

Every US example is a grey-market import — BMW never federalized the CSL, let alone the Batmobile aero package added mid-1973 specifically to keep the racing version stable above 200 km/h. That aero kit was so aggressive West German authorities wouldn't approve it for road use either; dealers delivered the wing and front airdam loose in the trunk for owners to bolt on once off public roads. Underneath the fiberglass and Perspex is genuine weight-saving discipline — thinner steel, aluminum doors and decklid, a 4-speed dogleg gearbox shared with the ordinary 3.0 CS — built to clear a 1,000-unit minimum for Group 2 racing, and BMW built just over that, 1,096 road cars. The touring-car pedigree is real and immediate: in BMW Motorsport's first season as a factory division, a CSL won the 1973 European Touring Car Championship manufacturers' title, one of six the model would take through 1979, and a small vintage-racing subculture still campaigns them today. But six-figure values — roughly tripled since 2016, with recent European sales clearing €400,000 — have pushed the road-car population toward storage. The racers still get driven hard; the street cars mostly don't.