AFTER years of neglect, a 1957 feather white BMW 507 that previously belonged to Elvis Presley has been fully restored - and is now the most 'valuable' of its kind in the world. Elvis owned the car when he posted in Germany as a US Army Sergeant, but later sold it when he returned to the US. Nobody knew what had happened to the famous car up until 2014, when automotive journalist Jackie Jouret discovered that it had been sitting in a pumpkin warehouse on the outskirts of San Francisco for over 30 years. Its new owner, named Jack Castor, had no idea about who the car had previously belonged to. Jackie said: “I got the feeling that he wasn’t a fan of Elvis in the slightest. We take the tarp off, and the car is in-tact but rough shape. An ordinary 507 is really a $1.2-1.5 million car, but with the Elvis association it suddenly becomes the most valuable 507 in the world.” After finding out about the car’s history, Castor sent the BMW to be restored, but he sadly passed away before it was completed. The car now features at the BMW Museum in Munich, mere miles away from where it was first manufactured.
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MotorTranscript
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.