3.0 CS

Why it exists

BMW's four-cylinder 2000 CS coupe of 1965 had a pretty tail and an awkward nose, and in 1968 the company had a new six, the M30, in the E3 sedan. The E9 was the cheap way to marry them: Karmann, which already built the 2000 CS body, stretched the wheelbase and the engine bay and gave the car a nose that matched the sedan, with Wilhelm Hofmeister credited as lead designer. Hagerty's Rob Siegel points out that from the tail to the windshield the 2800 CS was basically the 2000 CS body. The economy showed underneath. The first car kept the old coupe's rear drum brakes and narrow rear track, so the 2800 sedan was the better-braked car, and that was not corrected until the 3.0 engine arrived in 1971 with rear discs. Wikipedia dates the 2800 CS to 1968, and the club production table shows 138 built that year; Siegel, writing in Hagerty, places it a year after the 1968 E3 sedan.

The American car

There was no BMW of North America when the E9 was new. US cars came through Max Hoffman, and the e9coupe.com FAQ dates official US models from 1970 to 1974. One owner on the club forum has the paperwork to show how that worked: his 1971 2800 CS was built on October 1, 1970 and delivered to Hoffman Motors Corp on October 19. The US got the 2800 CS and then only the carbureted 3.0 CS, with compression cut to 8:1, side marker lights, shoulder belts, spacers that raised the front about an inch for sealed-beam headlight height, and for 1974 the protruding 5 mph aluminum bumpers. Siegel's description of the US cars is that nearly all were fully loaded, with leather, power windows, sunroof and air conditioning. The injected CSi was not imported, though gray-market cars came in, usually in European trim with cloth and no air conditioning.

What the period press said

RM Sotheby's lot copy for two US 3.0 CS cars quotes Road & Track calling the engine "without a doubt, the most sophisticated inline-six in the world." The same magazine also printed the other side. The 2800 CS mentioned above was the subject of its original owner's own, not very flattering, ownership review in the July 1973 Road & Track, after which he sold it and bought a 3.0 CS. No period US road test with instrumented figures could be fetched for this page; the published acceleration figures here come from later journalism and are labeled as such.

The CSL and the Batmobile

Introduced in May 1972, the 3.0 CSL was built to homologate the coupe for the European Touring Car Championship. The L stood for leicht: thinner body steel, aluminum doors, hood and trunk lid, plastic side windows, and the trim and sound deadening deleted. Its engine grew to 3,003 cc in August 1972 so the race cars could run in the over-three-liter class, then to 3,153 cc in 1973 with an aero package of air dam, fender fins, roof spoiler and a tall rear wing. The wing was illegal on German roads, so it was shipped in the trunk for the owner to fit, and the look earned the name Batmobile. Sports Car Market counts 110 of these built in 1973 and 57 more to December 1975. The CSL was the first product of the new Motorsport division, the first BMW Art Car was a CSL painted by Alexander Calder, and in 1975 a CSL gave BMW its first major sports car win in the US at the 12 Hours of Sebring. None were sold new here.

The end

The last variant, the 2.5 CS of 1974, answered the oil crisis and was never exported to the US. The E24 6 Series replaced the line after 1975. What survives is a car that BMW built cheaply on an old body and that Karmann built without much rust protection, which is why the condition of the metal, not the badge, sets the price today.

The M30 itself is durable. The e9coupe.com FAQ puts engine life past 300,000 miles between rebuilds with valve adjustments every 15,000 miles, and says the timing chain normally lasts the life of the engine. Its weak point in the US is heat: the FAQ says the M30 in an E9 can be prone to head gaskets because the stock cooling was designed for European climates, and recommends replacing the five-blade fan with a nine-blade fan and an updated clutch, or recoring the radiator. A reprinted buyer's guide on the club forum adds that contaminated oil usually means a cracked head and that a test drive should be long enough to check for overheating. The same guide lists differential oil leaks, worn driveshaft flex joints, power steering that is vague at center or squeals at full lock, two brake boosters that can fail (a pedal that sinks with the engine running is the test), slow electric windows, cracked dash wood and sun-damaged velour. On the original 2800 CS manual cars there were synchromesh complaints that the 3.0 gearbox addressed. The body is the expensive problem. Rust, Karmann's indifferent corrosion protection and the hidden fender trap are covered above, and Siegel's own repair history shows why: new nose and fender panels, cutting off the old fenders and welding in new ones, and a new windshield because the fenders are lap-seamed to its frame. NHTSA's recall database returns no campaigns for BMW E9 model years, so there are no factory recalls to check.

Start with the metal, because the e9coupe.com FAQ is blunt that rust is a coupe killer and that body and interior parts are now mostly sourced from parts cars. Hagerty's Rob Siegel describes a trap under the front fenders where dirt collects, stays wet and rots the shock towers, fenders and firewall from the inside, so that perforation at the bottom of the fenders means the damage is already advanced. Look at the join between the inner and outer fenders under the hood, inside the rocker panels, around the rear subframe mounts, the wheel arches, the trunk floor and the window surrounds. A sunroof car with a stained headliner may have a rusted roof around the opening. On an E9 the rear of each front fender forms the corner of the windshield frame, so fender replacement means the windshield comes out, and evidence of that work deserves an explanation. Then identify the car. A US 3.0 CS should show the 8:1 compression engine, side markers, the steering column VIN tag the FAQ describes and, on a 1974, the big aluminum bumpers. US 1973 model-year cars begin at VIN 2240391 for manual cars and 2250319 for automatics in the club VIN table. A CSi or CSL in the US arrived privately, and a CSL claim needs the VIN to fall in the CSL ranges; the club table also lists 169 early carbureted lightweights hidden inside the 3.0 CS VIN range. BMW's archive can confirm build date, original model and color from the VIN. Many cars now carry larger engines, five-speeds or Weber carburetors, which the FAQ says can be neutral to value when done well and which purists discount.

As of September 2026 classic.com puts its market benchmark for the 3.0 CS at $63,952 with an average price of $66,048. Its recorded range runs from $9,400 for a 1975 3.0 CSA on July 28, 2022 to $151,200 for a 1972 3.0 CS on August 14, 2026, which is the market's ceiling to date for the carbureted car that was actually sold in the US. The injected cars sit well above: classic.com's 3.0 CSi benchmark is $97,048 with an average of $94,424, and its lowest recorded sale was $11,250 for a 1972 CSi project in May 2022. The 3.0 CSL benchmark is $180,779 with an average of $186,255; the lowest recorded CSL sale, $37,250 in July 2022, is far enough below the rest to read as a car needing everything. Two US auction results show the slope behind those numbers. RM Sotheby's sold a 1973 3.0 CS automatic with factory air conditioning for $31,900 at Fort Lauderdale in 2014, and at Santa Monica in 2016 a 1973 3.0 CS automatic was offered with a $60,000 to $70,000 estimate and did not sell. Hagerty's Rob Siegel wrote that photos of his own color-changed CSi would suggest a $100,000 to $140,000 car on Hagerty values and online results, and that purists would mark it down for the color change and the non-original engine. Originality, rust history and the US-versus-European specification all move the number more than model year does. No individual CSL auction lot page could be fetched for this research, so no single CSL sale is quoted.