The Taunt You Couldn't Buy

In September 1973 BMW unveiled a car with a warning written backwards on its front spoiler — readable only in the rear-view mirror of the driver ahead. Parliament debated it. The press attacked it. And then BMW quietly never sold it. This is the story of the 2002 Turbo, Europe's first production turbo car, the taunt you couldn't buy, and the forty-year rivalry of congratulations it started between BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Chapters: 0:00 Cold Open 0:04 The Warning in the Mirror 0:53 The Car 1:56 The Warning 2:45 The Backlash 3:32 The Punchline 4:18 The Worst Timing 5:07 One Thousand Six Hundred and Seventy-Two 6:01 The Feud Gets Polite 7:14 Free At Last 8:06 The Shadow 8:57 Outro Music: "Dream Culture" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) — Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... "Chill Wave" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) — Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... "Backbay Lounge" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) — Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... "Lofi Midnight Club" by alex-morgan — Pixabay Content License. "Tokyo Lofi" by ZephiraMusic — Pixabay Content License. Images (Wikimedia Commons, per-image credits): 1974 BMW 2002 turbo — Herranderssvensson, CC BY-SA 3.0 BMW 2002 Turbo, Techno Classica 2018 — Matti Blume, CC BY-SA 4.0 BMW 2002 Turbo — Ermell, CC BY-SA 4.0 BMW 2002 Turbo (multiple views) — nakhon100, CC BY 2.0 1974 BMW 2002 ti Alpina — Calreyn88, CC BY-SA 4.0 BMW 2002 anniversary, Uruguay — NaBUru38, CC BY-SA 4.0 Automobiles in the BMW Museum — Tamas Andras Kalman, CC BY 2.0 U.S. gas rationing stamps 1974 — Warren K. Leffler, U.S. News & World Report, public domain 2018/2019 BMW i8 Roadster — Rutger van der Maar, CC BY 2.0 BMW, Paris Motor Show 2018 — Matti Blume, CC BY-SA 4.0 Dieter Zetsche, St. Gallen Symposium — St. Gallen Symposium, CC BY-SA 4.0 Zetsche / Schneider / Haug 2008 — AngMoKio, CC BY-SA 3.0 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe, Mercedes Museum — Ank Kumar, CC BY-SA 4.0 Narration is a synthesized voice; disclosed via YouTube's synthetic-content label.