Staring at the undercarriage of a car that has massive rust issues is more depressing than inspiring. Combing the rust particles out of my scalp proved to be inspiring though, because the vehicle in question is a gorgeous Hofmeister-designed BMW E9 coupé a friend of mine bought last year – sight unseen. As always, I let my mind wander in the following days to see what ideas I could come up with. Shooting Break? No, I want to do something else with it and create something out of the ordinary. CS means Coupé Sport and while talking about the recent trend of labeling new BMWs Gran Coupé, the coin dropped. A long list of modifications would be necessary to bring this to life. It sounds easier to do this in Adobe Photoshop, but it went through a lot of iterations until I was happy with the result.

Apart from the obvious additon of two doors, there are many modifications you likely didn’t spot right away when looking at the picture. The wheelbase is slightly longer to create room for the passengers feet and the front doors are shorter to keep the proportions in check. Extending the roof was a challenge in itself, because I also had to adjust the chrome trim above the windows. The E9 has frameless windows and I wanted to keep it that way. In order to be able to open the rear windows fully, I had to design a guide for the window, because I didn’t want to alter the C-pillar. Subtle, elegant and practical, just as the Karmann designers and engineers might have done it when challenged with such a task back in the days. Content with how the 4-door body turned out, I turned my attention to the wheels. The dinky original 14″ wheels look too small even for the 2-door and therefore I decided to utilize 15″ wheels with the same design. The hubcaps were carried over from the original 14″ wheels.

For comparison, please take a look at the original picture.