It’s no surprise that the innovation-packed Z1 became a favorite of BMW engineers, even if they couldn’t buy one of these hand-built roadsters when the car was new. “I couldn’t afford it, but I sure wanted it!” says Kurt Sposta, now retired after a 35-year career with BMW.
In the early 1990s, Sposta served on the site selection committee and as Project Manager for BMW Manufacturing in Spartanburg—one of 19 production/assembly plants and nine locations for Research & Development he helped design and build for BMW. In 2014, he retired to South Carolina but continued to visit Munich regularly. There, he began searching for a Z1 to call his own, hoping for one in Ur-Green but happy to find the car you see here, in Top Red over Gray/Dark Gray full leather.
Built on November 9, 1990, #AL05272 was delivered to the Autohaus Hartmann dealership near Hamburg a few days later. The car remained with its original owner until November 2011, when it was sold to a collector near Stuttgart. The Z1 went unregistered (and presumably undriven) until Sposta bought it in June 2016. He drove it around Munich for a few weeks before exporting it to South Carolina, where he enjoys it on local back roads and in the Blue Ridge mountains. “It’s my sunny day car,” Sposta says. “The center of gravity is so low, and the car isn’t really heavy. It drives like a go-kart. And because it’s like an E30 3 Series in disguise, you can have it serviced at a BMW dealer for the regular price, even though you actually have a little show car!”