Elvis BMW 507 - White / Red - same car

[gast-20090821]

Sometimes the "Elvis in Germany" details are a puzzle...so getting down to the details have become a challenge. So what about his BMW ?

Elvis rented a white BMW 507 from BMW Glöckler in Frankfurt December 1958. However, begin of September 1959 Elvis drove a red BMW 507 with a different license plate, so most people obviously think (and have published) that Elvis drove 2 different BMW's in Germany.

But that is actually not true: Elvis only rented one BMW 507:

The white BMW was repainted to it's orginal colors after Elvis had an accident with the 507 in the summer of 1959 - and the chassis had to be renewed (this also explains why the license plate was changed).

[TheKing]

Any more details about the accident?

[burroughs]

na was, gebumst wirds halt haben

[gast-20090821]

Any more details about the accident?

When Hal Wallis visited Elvis in Bad Nauheim during the third week of August in 1959 some publicity shots were scheduled for GI Blues. However, when Elvis was late one day and drove too fast through the curly roads of Parkstrasse up to Johannisberg, he crashed the BMW and the photosession was cancelled.

There are rumours that is was Vernon who drove the 507 that day and that Elvis took the blame because Vernon had a bad track record of accidents in Germany, which could cause an insurance issue...

[TheKing]

I was thinking that, if he crashed another car...how the other guy would have looked when he realised that no other than Elvis Presley was the driver, but as it seems he maybe just went off road. This is quite good information, thank you very much for this also.

[burroughs]

i don´t know it that´s the same story, but vernon had a crash *on his own* in germany too, is that correct?

[TheKing]

i don´t know it that´s the same story, but vernon had a crash *on his own* in germany too, is that correct?

Er hatte wohl ne ganze Latte davon...deswegen ja das Gerücht Elvis hätte den Crash auf sich genommen...please read correctly...

[Eva]

kann man das nicht hier her verschieben

"Elvis-News in englischer Sprache Hier kommen Elvis-News rein, die in englischer Sprache sind."

[Ela68]

Ich habe folgendes dazu gelesen und mich schon gefragt ob die vom gleichen Auto sprachen. Im Buch " Der King in Deutschland": Auf Seite 45 erzählt Angelika Springauf, Elvis hätte den Wagen umspritzen lassen, weil die weiblichen Fans immer mit Lippenstift darauf gekritzelt hätten.
Auf Seite 103 steht dann: Auch Elvis Vater nutze den Glanz des BMW 507 und fuhr ihn Stolz durch engen Gassen von Friedberg und Nauheims. Eines Tages allerdings geriet er direkt an eine Mauer. Der Schaden war von solchem Umfang, dass die Firma BMW eine neue Alu - Außenhaut anfertigen musste und dadurch nebenbei noch Vater und Sohn nach diesem für den Vater so peinlichen Unfall wieder versöhnte. Denn die Reparatur gefiel Elvis besser als das Original, so dass er fortan den Wagen ohne Lackierung fuhr. Noch heute fährt der Wagen unverändert irgendwo auf amerikanischen Straßen. Man erkennt ihn aber nicht nur an dem nüchternen silbernen Glanz, sondern an den vergoldeten Initialen, die Elvis kurz nach dem Erwerb an Stelle des bajuwarischen Blau - Weiß anbringen ließ.

[gast-20090821]

Seite 103, seems to confirm that it was Vernon who crashed the BMW and that the original BMW was repainted indeed as I posted above. This is also the version shared by more reliable sources like BMW Münich and the Finanzamt in Friedberg (Hessen) a while ago. The "lipstick" version by Angelika is the fan version of the story.

Thanks for sharing this info !