Here is a very unusual car, thanks to Dik S. for sending in this tip! This is a 1952 EMW 340 and it’s in Eberswalde, Germany. It’s listed as a classified ad on eBay with a price of €7,500 ($8,381).

The BMW 340 was the first new post-war car produced by BMW, although it was a slightly-reworked BMW 326 with a few different body panels and other bits. BMW produced cars in their Eisenach plant in the 1930s and in 1945 it came under Russian control, following an agreement with the US, in the years following WWII. In 1952 it came under the control of East Germany and they were known as EMWs, after being threatened that they would lose access to western currency if they continued to sell them under the BMW name. That is much too short and incomplete of a history of this cool, convoluted merger/takeover, but it’ll have to do until you read my doctoral thesis on the BMW/EMW 340.. Kidding. Although, if a person were to write a doctoral thesis on cars, I can think of worse subjects to research than that.

This particular Eisenacher Motorenwerk-built EMW 340 is from Finland, according to the seller’s description, which I can somewhat decipher thanks to Google Translate. Apparently, this car hasn’t been tinkered with which the seller says often leads to missing, hard to find parts such as headlights (I’m confident that someone will correct my cyber-German!). Notice the suicide doors; very, very cool.

As you can see from this photo of a restored 340, there’s a bit of work to be done on this car, to say the least. The 4-speed manual shifter is on the column here not on the floor, but it would still be a tight squeeze to have three people in the front seat, unless they’re very close comrades. The rear seat looks like it was comfortable and nice at one time, and it will be again, but plan on a total nut-and-bolt restoration here. Or, that’s what I would do with this rare car. There were a little over 21,000 of these cars made but I’m not sure how many have survived.

This is BMW’s M78, 1,971 cc, inline-six with around 55 hp. If there’s a company that knows how to make an inline-six it’s BMW, they’re as smooth as it gets, generally. Of course, this one will most likely need a total rebuild as part of the restoration, but once you’re done it’ll look something like this. The seller says that the engine turns freely and the transmission and brakes are working as far as loading it onto a trailer for shipping to your garage or restoration shop of choice. This would sure be an interesting vehicle for any car show, it would have to draw a crowd. Have you heard of this strange chapter in BMW’s history? Or, have you ever seen one of these EMW cars?