KITH REBUILDS A 1972 BMW TO SELL A COLOR

The 1972 BMW 3.0 CSi went down to bare metal before anyone touched a swatch of Kith monogram leather. Ronnie Fieg's team pulled the M30 straight six engine, the transmission, the rear axle, the suspension and the brakes from BMW's own archive, treated the shell with KTL coating against corrosion, and rebuilt the car from the frame up. This is the fourth chapter of Kith for BMW, and for the first time the apparel is not the starting point. The car is.

Fieg built two cars for this chapter, not one, and neither is for sale. That fact does more to explain the collection than any lookbook could.

The 3.0 CSi and the M6 Share One Interior Language

The 3.0 CSi is a 1972 model, restored with original BMW parts sourced from the brand's own archive rather than reproduction components. Its interior is finished in caramel leather embossed with the Kith monogram, paired with restored gauges and wood trim that keep the cabin looking period correct.

The second car, a 1987 BMW M6 E24, went through a full rotisserie restoration around its S38 inline six, a Getrag five speed manual gearbox, the original differential, suspension and brakes, and OEM BBS Style 5 wheels. Its interior matches the CSi's treatment exactly, same caramel leather, same embossed monogram, which is the point. BMW's E24 6 Series is the direct descendant of the 3.0 CSi in the brand's own lineage, and Fieg is using matching interiors to make that family tree visible instead of describing it in a press note.

Inka Orange Predates Both Cars by Decades

Inka Orange is not a color Kith invented for this collection. It comes from BMW's formative sporting years, the same era the 3.0 CSi raced in, and Fieg chose it specifically because the CSi carries that color history in its own lineage. It is the same instinct behind Kith's Linen Collection, which revived a 2001 Japan only Air Force 1 colorway rather than inventing a new one: find the dated original, then build back toward it exactly. Building two archive correct restorations around a single paint name is a heavier lift than licensing a color chip and printing it on a hoodie, and it shows in the amount of BMW original hardware both cars retained.

Neither restoration touched aftermarket parts where original BMW components were available. That is the craft argument for a collection that will mostly sell as clothing, not cars. If the paint history and the mechanical history do not hold up, the apparel referencing them is just merchandise with a nice backstory.

Neither Car Is For Sale

Kith is not auctioning the CSi or the M6. Both exist purely as the design reference behind the wider Kith for BMW apparel and accessories line, the same way a runway sample never reaches a store rack but still sets the season's silhouette. That distinction matters for anyone weighing what they are actually buying: not a piece of either restored car, but a color and a leather treatment that Fieg proved out on two vehicles before letting them near a garment pattern.

This is closer to how a design studio works than how a streetwear label usually operates. Automotive restoration and apparel drops rarely share a production calendar, let alone a design brief, but Kith's chapter four treats the cars as the primary object and the clothing as the translation. Industrial designers call this reverse engineering a brief: build the reference object first, then extract the material and color language from it. Kith is applying that discipline to a t shirt line most buyers will only ever see on a hanger.

Kith has not published pricing for the chapter four apparel yet, so a full price to craft verdict will have to wait for the collection itself. What is already on record is the labor. Two full frame off restorations, sourced BMW archive parts, matching monogrammed interiors and a KTL corrosion treatment are not cheap inputs, and Kith has historically priced its BMW chapters at a premium over its standard collections to reflect exactly that kind of production cost.

Kith Has Been Here Before With Salomon

Reviving a specific historical reference rather than a generic throwback is Fieg's recurring move. Finally Offline covered Kith's second Salomon collaboration of the year in August, its second team up with the trail brand in eight months. The BMW chapter runs the same instinct through cars instead of sneakers: find a specific, dated reference and rebuild toward it exactly, rather than gesturing at a decade in general.

Judge this chapter by the caramel leather and the KTL coating, not the paint name alone. Kith has now built two archive correct restorations from BMW's own parts bin to justify a single color across a fourth chapter of collaboration, which is a higher bar than most fashion partners clear when they borrow a shade from a car brand's history. The clothing has not landed yet. The cars already made the argument for it.