I have to sell it. I've owned it since May of 2002 (very appropriate). I believe I am the 4th owner. The first owner was in CT. The second owner is more local to me and bought the car to restore it. He had it for years in storage and never did much to it. He finally sold it to owner 3 who also had designs on restoration. It sat in his barn for many more years. He turned out to be an acquaintence of mine. I also believe that, while skewed by the "complete accuracy of BMW speedos of the era", the mileage is original. I don't believe this car has over 100k miles on it. The car is NOT original color. It was originally a fjord 2002. Why, with such a beautiful original color someone would elect to repaint the entire car red, I don't know. But it was COMPLETELY painted red. Not a $199 Maaco "tape the chrome and shoot it" job. Under the hood, door jambs, trunk, etc. The paint is showing its age tho with a wax job it DOES still gleam. With I bought it, it needed work. The clutch slipped and the radiator leaked and it had no HVAC system to speak of. The first thing I did was put an Ireland engineering clutch kit in it. The transmission shifts strong and true. There IS a little 2nd gear syncro noise but NOTHING like I'd expect a car of this age to have. That is one of the reasons I believe the 50k-60k miles on it are original. I also replaced the stock radiator with a Behr 320i retrofit kit. Cooling hasn't been an issue since. I have stripped all the non-working smog stuff from the car. It has the standard Weber 32/36 DGEV conversion on it. The carb has been rebuilt and jetted by a local 2002 expert. He wont tell me his secret but the difference in performance was astounding. I was at an AX a couple of years ago and took a fellow 2002 owner for a ride. He was absoultely blown away at the performance. The electric chokes on these cars didn't work for crap and this one is no exception. Other than that, the engine is stock, inside and out and to my knowledge has never been opened up (another reason I believe the mileage). It's hard to gauge oil usage since I don't drive it every day but it'll go thru a few quarts in a season depending on how much used it gets. The suspension has been pretty much completely replace with Bilsteins, sport springs (from I dont remember what, I'll try to find out and post later). The ball joints, tie-rods, wheel bearings, seals, fr brake rotors, brakes, wheel cylinders, shoes, pads, top strut (spacer removed) and shock mounts. The sway bar was swapped out with for a larger 320i unit with new urethane bushings. The rear shock towers are solid and have not been fixed (another < 100k mile clue) The interior is black. The stock seats were replaced with some cloth recaro knock-offs that came in a tii I bought. They are not in new shape for sure but they work and need only a nice sheepskin covering to make anyone forget the cloth underneath. The car origianlly came with a blue interior (to go with the fjord exterior). I have pretty much replaced the all the interior panels with black save for the ds door. I bought the door panel backs from Aardvark, did the passenger door (which came out completely awesome) but never got to the ds. I have the back and a black outer skin, just never did it. The rears were from a BMW salvage yard in NH. I picked some nice ones and they cleaned up well. The back seat is still blue but it's such a dark blue that unless you get upclose, you can't tell. As I said above, the car had no hvac stuff in it. In fact, it had no center console at all. I rectified that, putting in a heater core and fan, console. One of the previous owners had apparently sprung a leak and merely pulled all the stuff out. The hole in the firewall where the hc was was blocked with a small piece of plywood that was sealed with caulk. Go figure. Anyhow, the heat and controls work. The regulator works. The fan needs to be lubed. Rather than buy new ($$$$) I found a good working used unit. Problem is, the shaft needs more lube. When it gets warm out, the fan will start but then who needs it then!?!? The body is solid but it getting to the point where it needs attention. As I said, the rear shock towers are solid. When I bought it someone had done a hack job to the ds floor board, cutting out some rust and pop riveting in some galvanized and painting it black. When I was under doing the clutch, I got to see the extent of the problem. I decided, rather than try to fix it myself, it warranted being done right to be completely solid and sound. It is all that and more now. It was done by the carb jet guy's shop. The old rust was removed, the frame rail cut to acutal metal and all rebuilt with new welded in, properly sealed and coated. The rest of the car will LONG fall apart around that spot. At the same time, I replaced the pedal box with another that was in excellent condition. There are other spots that need attention, passenger side wheel well, a small spot under the ds rear seat and passenger side in the trunk, directly behind the wheel. The front valance below the bumper is also soft. Let's face it, the car is almost 30 years old. It's no where's near falling apart, it just needs some attention. That's one of the reasons I'm selling it. Either I start that process now and invest in it or get it to someone else who will give it as much TLC as I have. The car even has NEW (NEW NEW NEW, yep NEW) door brakes. I have the ds installed but not hooked up to the fender as it was pulling TOO hard on the fender side and distoring it. Needs to be reinforced. The passenger side works fine. I'll also throw in the e30 radio I picked up for it but never installed. The picture attached is actually from a few years ago. I just realized I haven't taken too many pics of it recently. The car will come with a set of aftermarket alloy wheels. I have the original steels with bottle caps as well. The ds mirror has been replaced with an OE mirror. I have also installed a ps mirror from a tii. I have other pics if you're interested. Right now the car is in storage in my quonset next to my garage. The battery is out. If and when someone is truely interested, I will take the time to get the car out, cleaned up, running and get more detailed current pics of it. All in all, over the last 4 years I've spent in the neighborhood of $3500 on it for various things. Now as to why I am selling. It's time. The Boomer (what my young son used to call it instead of Bimmer) needs to be taken to the next step in her life. When I bought it, it was the only BMW I had. I now own an 87 E30 E and an 89 IX so my BMW fix can be had. When we bought it, I sold my motorcycle as we were then 3 instead of two in the family. Now the boy is old enough to ride, my wife has reached her mid-life crisis and wants a bike of her own. I told her it would mean selling the Boomer. She was ok with it. Soooo... For me it's like a band-aid. I have to do it now and do it quick otherwise it'll stay on forever.
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