00:00 COMM: Mysterious, alluring, the most valuable
00:05 507 in the world.
00:07 THE CAR IS AN ICON FOR THE BMW HISTORY.
00:18 COMM: Mysterious, alluring and valuable.
00:22 THE APPEARANCE IS BREATH-TAKING.
00:24 COMM: It may be hard to believe, but this
00:27 beauty spent decades rusting in a California pumpkin shed.
00:32 COMM: Now, thanks to its previous owner, it's
00:36 the most valuable BMW in the world.
00:40 COMM: And just whose car was this?
00:43 THE KING HIMSELF
00:44 COMM: That's right, the King himself, Elvis
00:49 Presley.
00:50 COMM: Elvis bought this 1957 BMW 507 from a
00:55 racing driver while on military service in Germany.
01:00 When Elvis left the army in 1960, he sold the car to a drag racer in the United States
01:06 and it returned to the track.
01:08 COMM: In 1968, the now battered BMW found itself
01:15 in the care of car fanatic Jack Carster, who had no knowledge of the vehicle's famous
01:21 previous owner.
01:22 THE KING HIMSELF
01:25 COMM: Jack doesn't care about Elvis whatsoever.
01:26 I got the feeling that he wasn't a fan of Elvis
01:29 in the slightest.
01:31 COMM: Jack takes it off the road with the
01:34 intention of restoring it.
01:36 He accumulates a BMW V8 engine for it, he accumulates the proper ZF transmission for
01:42 it, all kinds of little details.
01:43 COMM: But Jack never got round to restoring
01:46 the car.
01:47 THE KING HIMSELF
01:49 COMM: He put 70079 in storage in a pumpkin
01:55 warehouse in Pescadero and it sat there for 30 years.
02:00 COMM: The story of Elvis' missing 507 became
02:03 somewhat of a legend and automotive journalist Jackie was determined to find it.
02:09 COMM: An ordinary 507 is really a 1.2 to 1.5
02:15 million dollar car, but with the Elvis Association it suddenly becomes the most valuable 507
02:22 in the world.
02:23 COMM: Jackie got her break when a friend of
02:24 Jack's read about the quest to find the missing car.
02:28 COMM: Jack sends me an email and we go down
02:33 to the pumpkin warehouse where he has the car stored.
02:37 It was a moving experience.
02:38 It was the thing that I had been looking for at this point for four years.
02:43 COMM: But this 507 had seen better days.
02:46 JACKIE HILTON
02:47 We take the tarp off and the car is in intact
02:51 but rough shape.
02:53 You can see that the car had been white, overpainted with black and then red again.
02:59 COMM: And why repaint it red?
03:02 JACKIE HILTON
03:03 Elvis had the car repainted in red.
03:04 Girls of course were crazy about him and they
03:08 would leave lipstick messages and lipstick kisses all over his white car, which of course
03:14 drove him crazy trying to keep it clean.
03:17 COMM: Then the news Jackie had been waiting
03:19 for.
03:20 JACKIE HILTON
03:21 BMW confirmed that it had been Elvis's 507.
03:26 COMM: With the previous owner confirmed, Jack
03:30 was offered a staggering 9 million dollars for the car.
03:34 But instead of taking the money, he decided to return to Sender.
03:39 JACKIE HILTON
03:41 The state of the car when it came to the restoration was pretty bad in nearly all aspects.
03:48 The framework was rusty, the body itself was rusty itself.
03:53 In fact the engine bay was empty when we got
03:54 the car.
03:55 Before there was a Chevrolet engine installed.
03:58 On the back of the car we had a big dent and
04:01 the trunk wasn't even able to be closed.
04:05 The interior of the car and especially the dashboard have been considered as very beautiful
04:11 all the decades long.
04:13 JACKIE HILTON
04:15 There was an energy that was present when that
04:17 car rolled out for the first time and no one had seen that car effectively since 1960-something.
04:22 COMM: Sadly, Jack passed away before restoration
04:27 was completed.
04:28 But he left the BMW to the museum, so now car fans and Elvis fans alike can pay homage
04:36 to the king of 507s.
04:39 you
04:40 you
04:40 you
04:45 [BLANK_AUDIO]
