Dry Ice Preservation Restores Rare 1957 BMW’s Original Shine
A rare 1957 BMW 503 Cabriolet gets new life with a cutting-edge dry ice restoration process.
By Tanya Manus
An elegant convertible with a fascinating storied history was one of the rarest gems in Heath Rodney's collection. His 1957 BMW 503 Cabriolet went through four years of restoration, including a dry ice preservation process that preserved its shine.
Heath Rodney has a passion for cars and a love for buying and selling them. Calling himself a car dealer at heart, his affection for cars turned into a career. He’s the owner of Vern Eide Motoplex and Vern Eide Powerhouse Sioux Falls. (Powersports Stores)
Heath also has a personal car collection that’s ever-changing, fueled by the thrill of finding the next great ride. Currently, he owns a couple of motorcycles and about six cars.
Heath is particularly fond of BMWs, and the rarer vintage vehicles are, the more likely they are to really capture his attention.
“The 1957 BMW 503 Cabriolet was an incredible find that ‘fell in my lap’ thanks to a longtime car dealer friend,” Heath shares. The dealer knew of Heath’s penchant for BMWs and put him in contact with a man in southern California who was selling the Cabriolet. Heath describes the rare vehicle as “born in Munich, raised in Malibu.”
The 1957 BMW 503 Cabriolet's appearance and technology are impressive. Its history is even more intriguing.
Due to war reparations after World War II ended, BMW was forced to suspend car building until 1952, Heath states. When the company began building cars again, BMW wanted to produce a "gentleman's convertible" that could compete with Cadillac and Mercedes convertibles.
“BMW was a well-known company before World War II, and they wanted to make their mark,” Heath states. “After World War II, the GIs had a fondness for German cars.”
Along with cars for everyday driving, BMW produced a few exclusive “gentleman’s convertibles” with just 139 Cabriolets to be distributed worldwide between 1956 and 1960. Only 13 Cabriolets were built for the United States market, and one of those is Heath’s car.
“For a production car, they don’t get much rarer,” Heath notes.
BMW also produced about 276 Coupes that were considered a brother car to the Cabriolet, and the Cabriolet’s well-known sister car, the BMW 507 two-door roadster.
“These are all handmade cars. They’re all aluminum bodied with engineering way ahead of its time. This (Cabriolet) was one of the most expensive cars that you could buy in 1957 if you could get one. These were between $13,000 and $15,000 back then,” Heath explains.
“The Cabriolets, though luxury convertibles, were technologically advanced and very powerful for their day,” notes Heath.
“It has an aluminum V8 engine, which was unheard of in 1957,” Heath states. “It’s technology that’s done today. Power windows, a power antenna, and a power top. It was probably one of the first cars that had a power top. There’s nothing comparable out there.”
When Heath bought his Cabriolet in 2018, it was a driving car with an older paint job, and the car was showing its age. What started out as a simple repaint became a transformation that restored the Cabriolet to almost as good as new condition.
“The car was repainted, fully reupholstered, got a new canvas top, and underwent miscellaneous mechanical and brake work,” Heath adds. AutoWerks in Tea completed the interior restoration and mechanical restoration, while the dry ice preservation process and other work were done at Vern Eide Motoplex.
Cars never looked better after dry ice blast.
Restoring a vintage car to almost new condition requires stripping away decades of wear and debris. For his 1957 BMW 503 Cabriolet, Heath eschewed the typical sandblasting in favor of a dry ice preservation process, and he says his cars never looked better.
“If somebody is going to do some work on the undercarriage of a car, they have to sandblast it, but that’s abrasive. With dry ice, it’s more of a cleaning. It comes out of the hose or gun at -109 degrees F. As these little ice pellets come in contact with the surface, they expand into gas and just naturally blow contaminants off the original finishes. It’s so satisfying to watch,” Heath shares.
Dry ice preservation is a boon for owners who want their classic cars to look their best.
“When you’re dealing in assets like this or if you’re a consumer and you’re trying to present your assets in the best possible way, whether it’s to show or to sell it, this is revolutionary,” Heath states. “It’s an expensive process. What it does is it takes this BMW, and basically, we took 60 years of contaminants off the undercarriage of the car. What it shows is its natural state, how it left the factory.”
Dry ice preservation works on engines and vehicle interiors, too.
“When you take a machine like this BMW and you do the dry ice, it removes all the impurities. You can see the factory torque marks,” Heath explains. “It’s a preservation more than a restoration.”
Dry ice preservation was originally designed for use on aerospace jet engines. Heath learned about the dry ice preservation process from another car collector who "got infatuated with it."
“I’ve been slowly following it and three years ago, I bought all the stuff (for the dry ice preservation process),” Heath adds.
His own cars get the dry ice treatment, and now Heath is introducing the dry ice preservation service at the Vern Eide Motoplex and other dealerships.
"We've had so many requests, and it's time to open it up and share it," Heath notes. "We'll be offering the service to the public."
Meanwhile, restoration complete, Heath drove the 1957 BMW Cabriolet 503 and put it up for auction. Heath has another, even rarer car he’s restoring now. He and childhood friend Dereck Freshour of Villisca, IA, bought a 1937 BMW 328 factory lightweight that was languishing in a barn in Iowa.
“We didn’t really know what we had. It had been rebodied after World War II. They couldn’t build new cars (in Europe), so what they would do is take an old vehicle and put a new body on it, and that’s the only way they could produce and sell cars until 1952,” Heath explains.
What Heath and Dereck discovered was that their Works 1937 BMW 328 is the lost car that raced at Le Mans and the Mille Miglia. Only five were made, and Heath’s is the only one left in existence in its original race configuration. It will likely be the rarest gem ever to find its way to Heath’s collection.