The Design
In 1971 BMW and Karmann decided to explore the possibility of a lightweight performance variant of their coupe after seeing success on the track with tuning company Alpina. Taking 169 vehicles from the original CS production run engineers set about stripping weight from the CS; first they addressed the original construction and fitted lightweight Aluminium doors, bonnet, boot, roof and lightweight steel wings to give a full lightweight shell. The engine remained unchanged from the 2,985 cc carburetted inline 6 found in the CS, but BMW had managed to remove almost 200kg in the cars extreme diet resulting in a huge upturn in performance. Seeing the huge potential in these lightweight cars 21 examples were purchased by Alpina and Schnitzer, who converted the E9s to race in the German Group 2 Touring car series. These early cars are known as the ‘Ultra Lightweights’. Dubbed the CSL (coupe sport leicht) this car was the inception of BMWs M division and soon saw further development to become homologated so BMW could dominate the German touring car scene.
The Shirt
- Wash the shirt inside-out to preserve the graphic
- 100% combed and ring-spun cotton (Heather colors contain polyester)
- Fabric weight: 4.2 oz/yd² (142 g/m²)
- Pre-shrunk fabric
- Side-seamed construction
- Shoulder-to-shoulder taping