British Gentleman? BMW 528i, © BMW AG
The differences of a BMW E12 for the market in Great Britain and Australia are mostly visible inside of the car. The reason for the changes are traffic regulations. In these countries you drive on the left side of the road. Because of this, the drivers seat is placed at the right side. These cars are called right hand steered cars. Who thinks now, that all components are arranged mirror-inverted, is mistaken. If you like to open the bonnet, you'll find the unlock handle at the left side, as you know that from the left hand version. But you have to open the glovebox first, to get access to the handle. If you look at the moulding at the dashboard, you see a little dent. The moulding is formed differently.
Picture 1, 2: The unlock handle next to the glove box, Picture 3: Placing of switches below the instrument cluster (SA-Edition with km/h-speedo), © www.e12.de
Picture 1: Pedals, Picture 2, 3: comparison of the different mouldings, © www.e12.de
The instrumentation of the center console has english text. The gears of the manual transmission are arranged like at the left hand version. The placement of the foot pedals are also familiar. From left to right: the pedal for the clutch, brake and the gas pedal. The convexity of the wheelhouse don't disturb the function of the pedals. All switches are labelled with English text.
The warning lights of the instrument cluster are also labelled with English text until 1977. The speedo is miles scaled. 1974 Australia converted to the metric system, thus the speedos got the km/h scale.
UK-License plate, © www.e12.de
The license plates of the United Kingdom (UK) contain besides a code for the location also a code for the first registration. Cars which were imported later to the UK, e. g. today, will get the sort scheme of the the year of its first registration including the letter of that year. For more details please check the table at the bottom. The license plate, which is displayed here belonged to a BMW 528i. The white and reflecting plate was mounted at the front and the yellow and also reflecting plate was mounted at the rear. The last letter of this license plate (W in this case) shows the period of time of its first registration: 1980-08-01 to 1981-07-31. At the bottom of the plate are the BMW logo and the name of the dealer.
| Code | Date from | Date to |
| L | 1972-08-01 | 1973-07-31 |
| M | 1973-08-01 | 1974-07-31 |
| N | 1974-08-01 | 1975-07-31 |
| P | 1975-08-01 | 1976-07-31 |
| R | 1976-08-01 | 1977-07-31 |
| S | 1977-08-01 | 1978-07-31 |
| T | 1978-08-01 | 1979-07-31 |
| V | 1979-08-01 | 1980-07-31 |
| W | 1980-08-01 | 1981-07-31 |
| X | 1981-08-01 | 1982-07-31 |
| Y | 1982-08-01 | 1983-07-31 |
| A | 1983-08-01 | 1984-07-31 |
| B | 1984-08-01 | 1985-07-31 |
Australie
On Australian roads: right hand BMW 520i, © WHEELS
Especialness for Australia: In the middle of 1973 the first BMW 520 came to Australia's car dealers. The BMW 520i followed one year later in 1974 an shortly after that the complete 5-Series range was available. After the release of new pollution laws the range was reduced to the fuel injection models only: BMW 520i and BMW 528i. From 1978 to 1982 the BMW 528i was offered only. The car got a exhaust gas circulation system. Caused by this the output of the engine was reduced from184 HP to 177 HP. With a short delay the BMW E28 528i was introduced in 1982. Beginning with 1983 the 2nd modeltype of BMW E28 was reseased: BMW 520i
The following small modifications were made for the Australian Market:
- Sideimpact protection bars inside of the doors
- stronger sunvisors without a mirror at the passenger side
- BRAKE-telltale lamp: text instead of a symbol
- additional instrument cluster for the handbrake on top of the center console
- no VIN-plate but a compliance plate on the opposite side
