Street-Spotted: BMW 528e

These days the letter ‘e’ on a trunk badge usually means electric, or at the very least electrified. But back in the 1980s it stood for something else entirely, at least in BMW's case.

The darkest days of the late Malaise era saw a number of European sedans attempt to save their owners some money at the pump, and usually this meant diesels that had been reserved for Europe were finding their way into the engine bays of cars considered quite luxurious for the day.

That's how we saw cars like the Volvo 740 and Peugeot 505 gain diesel options—cars that exist today in laughably tiny numbers—with some of these gas-crisis specials arriving after prices came back down to earth. But that didn't matter, as dealers got them anyway all the way through the second half of the decade.

More ‘e’fficient

And diesel options weren't the only way to keep up with the time.

In addition to gaining a diesel option by the middle of the decade, the E28-generation BMW 5-Series also saw the appearance of something a little more subtle underhood, lest your neighbors get used to identifying your car from half a mile away by the diesel clatter.

In the case of this 5-Series, ‘e’ stood for the Greek letter eta, denoting thermodynamic efficiency, with the 528e powered by a 2.7-liter inline-six detuned with the help of smaller ports and valves. This setup bought the engine a bit of torque, 170 lb-ft at 3250 rpm, but horsepower dropped from 169 hp in the 528i to just 121 hp at 4250 rpm in the 528e.