Out of all the ostentatious European machinery that became wealth-flaunting signifiers for newly rich Americans during the middle 1980s, which was the cocainiest? I’ve found a discarded example of one of the strongest contenders for that title, now residing in a Denver car graveyard.
In my opinion, the honor of Cocainiest Car of the Middle 1980s is a two-way tie between two BMWs: the E24 L6 and the E23 L7.
I’ve been looking for L6s and L7s in the boneyards since I started doing this job nearly 20 years ago, and today’s car is the first after all that time (not counting ones that were too crashed and/or stripped to be recognizable). The best I’d been able to do prior to now is this street-parked L6 I shot on the Island That Rust Forgot for the Down on the Street series, back in 2007.
There are other contenders for Cocainiest Car of the Middle 1980s, of course. I think all qualifiers must be European; Japanese machinery was too sensible, American luxury cars were for old people and the C4 Corvette was for track geeks. A strong candidate is the Mercedes-Benz W126 coupe.
The argument could be made that the Europe-only turbocharged 745i version of the E23 7 Series was even cocainier than the L7, and the shady entrepreneurs importing gray-market European luxury machines would have known their way arou …
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Author: Murilee Martin
