July 2011 - May 2014
Disclaimer, this car is already sold and gone, but this article is here to give a back story for, and clean up, my current cars build thread.
In July of 2011 I traveled from South Dakota (where I was living at the time) to San Francisco for vacation, there I was picked up by my friend from Salt Lake City, Alex (in his new e36 M3) and brought back up through SLC where my new e30 awaited. My long awaited entry into a german car was about to begin after a year of searching had yielded no results. I had Alex searching the SLC area for me, as any of you from the Dakota area will know first hand clean BMW’s are a slim few (at least you should know, and if you don’t, go hop on Craigslist to the Bay Area classifieds and re-think everything you thought you knew).
The time came, the plans were made down to a ‘T’, I forwarded Alex $3,500 and I was officially the owner of a 1990 325is. A few weeks went by, a leisurely vacation in San Fran was history, and on the road to my new e30 I was.
Alex arrives, hard park, hard pose.
On the road to SLC.
The first time I saw it.
For those on here, I’m sure you all remember the feelings you’ve encountered when first meeting that car of yours. The one that was that one, to you.
First drive, getting burgers.
At the movies that night.
The next morning, ready for a wash for the trip home.
Post wash and rack removal (Alex kept it as payment), ready for the trip home.
This car gave me all the right feelings, it gave me good vibrations, thus leading to its name, Marky Mark. If you didn’t know Mark Wahlberg was a rapper, now you know, what a learning experience this is!
Music video: http://youtu.be/-eSN8Cwit_s
Name tag.
This e30, Marky Mark, already happened to have some aftermarket modification, Bilsteins, H&R race springs, big ass green sway bars, camber plates, nothing crazy but everything fun. A seasoned veteran of many understeer battles in front-wheel drive vehicles (I did zero serious/competitive driving before this car, all those battles were well deserved/provoked), this car was exactly what I had been looking for, inside and out. Aesthetically pleasing, sharp and bold lines, yet nothing flashy. When I needed it to perform, it did (and when I didn’t need it to break down, sometimes it did too). It took my novice driving skills and helped hone them with forgiving yet true suspension. I will never lose the love for oversteer that this car gave me.
Shouts to Johnny Theophilus for these pics.
Two years, many autocrosses, a curb, thousands of photos, and many more thousands of dollars in maintenance passed.
I then moved to Utah with that same Alex, my e30 was back where it had spent all but those two years of it’s life.
Before this trip I had spent numerous hours and dollars preparing this car for the journey out west (in moving I also used my time off to visit California (and Laguna Seca) for BMWCCA’s Oktoberfest).
Parked next to my dream car on the fairway of a Monterrey golf course.
Guess what I’m headed into…
The corkscrew!
Videos:
Autocross: http://youtu.be/o0Ac4hQhs5U
Autocross with GoPro wind noise: http://youtu.be/MyFezPEtI8E
Laguna Seca Track session: http://youtu.be/MMd2_eED1GU
Look I even made the cover of that months Roundel Magazine, and had a photo in one of the features!
Wipe away drool now, as I still am. Continuing on the note of all my prep and maintenance, aside from one wet ECU snafu, the car was dead reliable, and as anyone with any car knows, aside from basic maintenance the days of utter reliability are typically numbered. Then came the time to make a decision... It was either going to eventually be time to throw more money into this car for maintenance/refurbishment, and/or upgrades like coilovers, etc, or to sell it for a good price and start spending money on a different car, starting over.
Long story short, May of 2014 rolled around and at just short of three years of ownership, Marky Mark was sold for $4,100.
Full flickr album of photos of Marky Mark over the years.
You didn’t think I had no plans to replace him did you? You must be on dog food.
Follow the link here for the build thread of Marky Mark’s predecessor:
Disclaimer, this car is already sold and gone, but this article is here to give a back story for, and clean up, my current cars build thread.
In July of 2011 I traveled from South Dakota (where I was living at the time) to San Francisco for vacation, there I was picked up by my friend from Salt Lake City, Alex (in his new e36 M3) and brought back up through SLC where my new e30 awaited. My long awaited entry into a german car was about to begin after a year of searching had yielded no results. I had Alex searching the SLC area for me, as any of you from the Dakota area will know first hand clean BMW’s are a slim few (at least you should know, and if you don’t, go hop on Craigslist to the Bay Area classifieds and re-think everything you thought you knew).
The time came, the plans were made down to a ‘T’, I forwarded Alex $3,500 and I was officially the owner of a 1990 325is. A few weeks went by, a leisurely vacation in San Fran was history, and on the road to my new e30 I was.
Alex arrives, hard park, hard pose.
On the road to SLC.
The first time I saw it.
For those on here, I’m sure you all remember the feelings you’ve encountered when first meeting that car of yours. The one that was that one, to you.
First drive, getting burgers.
At the movies that night.
The next morning, ready for a wash for the trip home.
Post wash and rack removal (Alex kept it as payment), ready for the trip home.
This car gave me all the right feelings, it gave me good vibrations, thus leading to its name, Marky Mark. If you didn’t know Mark Wahlberg was a rapper, now you know, what a learning experience this is!
Music video: http://youtu.be/-eSN8Cwit_s
Name tag.
This e30, Marky Mark, already happened to have some aftermarket modification, Bilsteins, H&R race springs, big ass green sway bars, camber plates, nothing crazy but everything fun. A seasoned veteran of many understeer battles in front-wheel drive vehicles (I did zero serious/competitive driving before this car, all those battles were well deserved/provoked), this car was exactly what I had been looking for, inside and out. Aesthetically pleasing, sharp and bold lines, yet nothing flashy. When I needed it to perform, it did (and when I didn’t need it to break down, sometimes it did too). It took my novice driving skills and helped hone them with forgiving yet true suspension. I will never lose the love for oversteer that this car gave me.
Shouts to Johnny Theophilus for these pics.
Two years, many autocrosses, a curb, thousands of photos, and many more thousands of dollars in maintenance passed.
I then moved to Utah with that same Alex, my e30 was back where it had spent all but those two years of it’s life.
Before this trip I had spent numerous hours and dollars preparing this car for the journey out west (in moving I also used my time off to visit California (and Laguna Seca) for BMWCCA’s Oktoberfest).
Parked next to my dream car on the fairway of a Monterrey golf course.
Guess what I’m headed into…
The corkscrew!
Videos:
Autocross: http://youtu.be/o0Ac4hQhs5U
Autocross with GoPro wind noise: http://youtu.be/MyFezPEtI8E
Laguna Seca Track session: http://youtu.be/MMd2_eED1GU
Look I even made the cover of that months Roundel Magazine, and had a photo in one of the features!
Wipe away drool now, as I still am. Continuing on the note of all my prep and maintenance, aside from one wet ECU snafu, the car was dead reliable, and as anyone with any car knows, aside from basic maintenance the days of utter reliability are typically numbered. Then came the time to make a decision... It was either going to eventually be time to throw more money into this car for maintenance/refurbishment, and/or upgrades like coilovers, etc, or to sell it for a good price and start spending money on a different car, starting over.
Long story short, May of 2014 rolled around and at just short of three years of ownership, Marky Mark was sold for $4,100.
Full flickr album of photos of Marky Mark over the years.
You didn’t think I had no plans to replace him did you? You must be on dog food.
Follow the link here for the build thread of Marky Mark’s predecessor:
