[john.wigley]

I don't think that I would be quite so quick to dismiss a 245 as a viable touring car. True, a heavily laden 2.0 auto may struggle a little when mixing it with modern machinery on the Autobahns and Autoroutes, but all variants should be fine on 'ordinary' roads. Although we do prefer autos, our '83 2.3 MOD GLT was a near perfect car for this purpose.

We have toured extensively in Scandinavia and Northern Europe, in period, in 1, 2 and 7 series cars and all were well capable of the task. Other than to quickly reach a specific destination, we eschewed major roads, using instead more minor routes in order to better appreciate the area that we were visiting.

In Sweden, not unnaturally, the 245 is in it's element. Distances between towns are such that a comfortable cruising speed of 90 Km/H can be maintained almost indefinitely, resulting in a car that averaged 23 MPG at home returning 30+ on it's home turf.

If 'venomtail' is in fact already considering sourcing a car in mainland Europe, I would suggest that he looks closely at Sweden as well. Prices for 'running restoration' project cars do not yet appear there to have reached the levels that they now command in the UK. I have no idea, however, regarding the ease or cost of bringing one to the UK, which would obviously have to be added to the purchase cost. As noted earlier by Alan, the practicalities of such a venture would merit very careful consideration before proceeding.

On a purely practical note, we found the 60/40 split rear seat of the 7 series cars an incredibly useful improvement over the arrangement on the 2 series. That is not to take anything away from the 2 series, but it does make the 7 a much more versatile car, particularly on tour!

Regards, John.