00:00Mysterious, alluring, the most valuable 507 in the world.
00:15The car is an icon for the BMW history.
00:19Mysterious, alluring and valuable.
00:23Its appearance, it's breathtaking.
00:25It may be hard to believe, but this beauty spent decades rusting in a California pumpkin shed.
00:33Now, thanks to its previous owner, it's the most valuable BMW in the world.
00:41And just whose car was this?
00:46That's right, the king himself, Elvis Presley.
00:51Elvis bought this 1957 BMW 507 from a racing driver while on military service in Germany.
01:00When Elvis left the army in 1960, he sold the car to a drag racer in the United States and it returned to the track.
01:09In 1968, the now battered BMW found itself in the care of car fanatic Jack Carster,
01:19who had no knowledge of the vehicle's famous previous owner.
01:23Jack doesn't care about Elvis whatsoever.
01:26I got the feeling that he wasn't a fan of Elvis in the slightest.
01:30Jack takes it off the road with the intention of restoring it.
01:34He accumulates a BMW V8 engine for it.
01:37He accumulates the proper ZF transmission for it.
01:40All kinds of little details.
01:42But Jack never got round to restoring the car.
01:49He put 70079 in storage in a pumpkin warehouse in Pescadero and it sat there for 30 years.
01:57The story of Elvis's missing 507 became somewhat of a legend
02:02and automotive journalist Jackie was determined to find it.
02:06An ordinary 507 is really a 1.2 to 1.5 million dollar car,
02:13but with the Elvis Association it suddenly becomes the most valuable 507 in the world.
02:20Jackie got her break when a friend of Jack's read about the quest to find the car.
02:25Jack sends me an email and then we go down to the pumpkin warehouse where he has the car store.
02:30It was a moving experience.
02:33It was the thing that I had been looking for at this point for four years.
02:37But this 507 had seen better days.
02:41We take the tarp off and the car is in intact but rough shape.
02:47You can see that the car is in pretty good shape.
02:50It's in intact but rough shape.
02:54You can see that the car had been white, overpainted with black and then red again.
03:00And why repaint it red?
03:03Elvis had the car repainted in red.
03:05Girls of course were crazy about him and they would leave lipstick messages
03:11and lipstick kisses all over his white car,
03:15which of course drove him crazy trying to keep it clean.
03:17Then, the news Jackie had been waiting for.
03:21BMW confirmed that it had been Elvis's 507.
03:27With the previous owner confirmed, Jack was offered a staggering $9 million for the car.
03:34But instead of taking the money, he decided to return to sender.
03:39The state of the car when it came to the restoration was pretty bad in nearly all aspects.
03:46The framework was rusty, the body itself was rusty itself.
03:51In fact, the engine bay was empty when we got the car.
03:54Before there was a Chevrolet engine installed.
03:57On the back of the car we had a big dent and the trunk wasn't even able to be closed.
04:02The interior of the car and especially the dashboard have been considered as very beautiful all the decades long.
04:11There was an energy that was present when that car rolled out for the first time
04:16and no one had seen that car effectively since 1960 something.
04:20Sadly, Jack passed away before restoration was completed.
04:25But he left the BMW to the museum.
04:27So now car fans and Elvis fans alike can pay homage to the king of 507s.
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