Automotive journalist and all-round lovely fella, Jonny Smith, and his YouTube channel, The Late Brake Show, have been traveling around the UK for its barn find episodes. There have been some spectacular cars rescued or resurrected, including BMWs, but this one is particularly heart-wrenching. At least it has a happy ending, so far anyway.
It involves a 1977 first-generation BMW 5 Series that was bought at an auction in the early 1980s that the owner’s daughter, Sarah, remembers going to. The car has been sitting in the garage of the family farm since the late-1980s, and the owner died in the 1990s. It’s been parked for nearly 40 years, and it’s not just an early run-of-the-mill early 5er. Here’s the story.