MOT ‘D731 EWK’ has been in its current ownership for five years, during which time it has been dry stored.

It is a manual gearbox example that currently displays 123,057 miles courtesy of five owners, the current one of whom grades the engine and transmission as ‘good’, the bodywork and grey cloth interior trim as ‘average’, and the matching grey paintwork as below average.

In an honest personal appraisal he volunteers that there are ‘some areas of peeling lacquer, and a dent and degree of corrosion in the rear bumper, but that the Beemer starts and drives and has tyres of minimal wear’.

It is hard to credit that the now mighty BMW was close to insolvency in the 1960s.

The company’s meteoric rise to a position of considerable strength arguably took a mere 10 years and was achieved, not by startling innovation, but sound engineering and skilful evolution.

The inaugural 5 Series (E12) range was very much a product of the company’s unique reincarnation and, now in its seventh generat...