The mystery of a ghost BMW dealership

In the small town of Oakville, Ontario there sits a BMW dealership, abandoned for almost a decade. Inside the doors sit, frozen in time, two 20-year-old BMWs in seemingly mint condition. What happened?

There's something about abandoned car dealerships that fascinate us as car enthusiasts. With over 1,500 car dealerships closing their doors since the Carpocalypse, abandoned dealerships have become a modern version of the decades-old barn find fantasy.

All car guys fervently hope to one day find our car of our dreams secretly sitting somewhere — hidden away from prying eyes, safe from weather and time, just waiting for us to save it and make it our own. And it is dealerships like this one that help make us believe this secret car fantasy can someday become a reality.

The folks at Endras BMW have sifted through the five years of posts on the MaxBimmer BMW forum. There, the dedicated membership has carefully attempted to track down exactly what happened to this abandoned Canadian car dealership.

What they — and Endras BMW — have been able to put together is that in 1988 the dealer, operating under the name "Citation Motors," had its license revoked for unknown reasons. They then moved to Toronto under the name "Downtown BMW" which in 2002 closed up shop.

The owner, apparently a well-off business man, seemed to have no interest in selling the place, or even the inventory, as everything seems to have been left behind intact. One hundred percent frozen in time is the only description that seems fitting when describing this ultimately interesting place.

In the showroom you'll find an E28 and 635csi BMW in absolute mint condition. Well, mint may be the wrong word to use as the rubbers have probably given away and the gasoline has made a mess of things inside the mechanical bits. 'Unused' may be a better word to describe these twenty-three year old cars. Especially the 635csi, which apparently only has double digit kilometers on the odometer. Also note the typical 1980's showroom interior furnishings, architecture, and design.

But that's not the only interesting find in the building.

Around the back you'll find the shop, which, same as the showroom, has remained completely untouched. Frozen in time and packed with BMWs. From one BMW forumite's account who's had the privilege of visiting the dealership we can conclude with a certain degree of confidence that another mint black 635csi rests inside.

MaxBimmer forum member "WhadUpp" managed to beat the window reflections to get some amazing pictures of the dealership from the outside. We've included a few of them in this post, but I strongly recommend visiting the thread here to see the rest.

You can keep up with Ray Wert, the author of this post, on Google+, Twitter or Facebook.