B 873 RAD

Home-made vehicle

Câmpulung Muscel, Argeș (AG)

At Muzeul Automobilului Românesc
(Romanian Automobile Museum)

The story of this vehicle:
What you see in the picture is a car built on a BMW chassis by Constantin Rădulescu (a man from Ploiești) in 1960. In 1951 the man bought a BMW 320 from 1938, in Romania in the 50s in the cinemas before movies, the news were broadcast, in a day the man had seen on the news the visit of the Soviet leader in the USA and an offical car it was a 1959 Cadillac DeVille, Rădulescu was impressed by that car and he really wanted a replica, but his project was not easy at all and took a long time after many plans and sketches.
He didn't think too much and started the vehicle construction, his project was approved by the militia that regularly checked the evolution of the project. In 1960, a militia commission of the Ploiești region inspects the car and decides that it can drive on public roads.
The car was used until 1999 when it was last check. Due to the new laws, the introduction of the new vehicle registration certificate at the end of the 90s represented the end of all home-made vehicles, because RAR (Romanian auto registry) no longer issued certificates for home-made vehicles and they were not approved, and that was the reason for why all the home-made vehicles disappeared from Romania's roads.
Constantin Rădulescu it was very upset because of the new laws and parked his car in the garage where it stayed there for many years.
But a few years ago, the president of Retromobil Romania found out about this car and expressed his interest for saving this car. A nice gesture was also made by the descendants of Constantin Rădulescu who decided to donate the car to the Retromobil president, but he assumed a series of obligations, the hardest "mission" was the re-registration of the vehicle, the restart of the vehicle was simple and passed the technical inspection without problems. RAR (Romanian auto registry) analyzed the request and made the decision to issue a vehicle registration certificate and it was re-registered in traffic with the plates B 873 RAD, the last combination with which it was registered was kept, but also part of the manufacturer's name. Also, the name of the car is "Replica" and the model is called "BMW Special Rădulescu"

Please comment for the front view.