5 years out of the game

[Mulletproofed]

Hello All,

I have not driven an E30 or been on this forum since 2018!!


Anyway, Back to driving my old car into work! I forgot how hot it is to drive without AC.

I have owned many E30s from 2003 until 2018 and then stopped. Life happened....


What's new in the game in the last few years? What's popular?


I wish I would have held unto more cars from my past. Prices are crazy these days I see. E30's are considered a real classic these days I guess. I get way more honks and thumbs up than I ever did before.


When bought cars they were anywhere from $300 to $2000 dollars, never more. I wish I would have kept all 14 of them!




Here is a YouTube short I made just made changing the diff oil with my daughter. 325IS

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vrtdngNg9f8

[ZeKahr]

Hello All,

I have not driven an E30 or been on this forum since 2018!!


Anyway, Back to driving my old car into work! I forgot how hot it is to drive without AC.

I have owned many E30s from 2003 until 2018 and then stopped. Life happened....


What's new in the game in the last few years? What's popular?


I wish I would have held unto more cars from my past. Prices are crazy these days I see. E30's are considered a real classic these days I guess. I get way more honks and thumbs up than I ever did before.


When bought cars they were anywhere from $300 to $2000 dollars, never more. I wish I would have kept all 14 of them!




Here is a YouTube short I made just made changing the diff oil with my daughter. 325IS

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vrtdngNg9f8

Prices have gradually creeped up since the pandemic. A mint BAT-condition 5-speed 325i you could have gotten for $10k back in 2018 now costs $20k. With the way prices are going, I won't be surprised if that same condition car goes for $30k-40k in 2028 (exact number depends on how bad inflation gets over the next few years). Get used to this trend - getting worse and worse condition E30s for the same price as time goes on. Attrition hasn't stopped and will continue as these cars get older, although the rate of attrition will slow as they become increasingly collectible.

The most opportune time to get into E30s was around 2004-2011, when these cars were at the absolute bottom of their 20-year depreciation curve. That ship has now sailed and will never come back. Prices have been gradually going nuts ever since the first ones got put up on BAT back in 2015.

[Panici]

Welcome back to the fold!
Post some pics of your new E30.

They are indeed a classic now. Coupled with inflation and prices have gone crazy.

[projectJTv4]

Welcome back! Did you have a new car every year from 2003 to 2018??

[Mulletproofed]

Hey, Thanks guys! Its been fun to drive again. Classic for sure these days.

projectJTv4 I would buy a car nearly every year. Fix it up. Drive for 6-12 months and then sell. It was fun. I got to try a bunch of models (325E, 325ES, 325I, 318i, 318IS, 325 vert, 1 auto, M3 motor swap. I never had a 325IX though.

Honestly, my favorites would not be popular opinion. I liked the rolling city driving torque of the 325ES and gas mileage. Then the light handling of the 318is paired with skinny hubcap wheels and dirt cheap tires for drifting every corner in town (tacky wide tires ruined it). And then the 325is. Autos were clunky and verts were fun but stressful in rain when daily driving.

Man, thinking back. I did everything in these cars. I renovated a whole house buying materials and placing them on the roof rack. I was too poor in college and I would bump start my car on the hill everyday because I didn't have money for a battery.


Black 325IS (attached )is my daily this week and only remaining car.

and two other random pictures of my driveway in the old days. :)

[Panici]

Those are some good pics! You've been lucky to have so many E30s over the years.
Makes me want to pick up a 325es as a daily driver. Too bad even a driver-quality car is very expensive now.

[Mulletproofed]

Panici Yea, many would disagree about the 325es, but it was an awesome car. Just get a chip to increase the rev limit (its super low) if you are very feeling spirited. My logic was that if you buy right you can always sell for more so its almost like driving free. ( I am trying to find a video where I took at 325es to the drag strip when I was 16).

[ZeKahr]

Makes me want to pick up a 325es as a daily driver. Too bad even a driver-quality car is very expensive now.

Even before the price becomes a problem, finding a nice 325es (one that isn’t a regular 325e modded up to es spec) is hard because they’re a rare variant. There’s only been 8 auctions on BAT for the 325es (well 9 now as one is currently being auctioned on there). Compare that to 171 auctions for its 325is brethren on the same website. Hell, there’s been even more auctions on BAT for a 325iX coupe (a supposedly rare E30) than for a 325es.

[McGyver]

What became popular in the last 5 years? I'd say the m20. I remember when 24v swaps were the cool thing to do and that's all that people wanted. I'd say that at least 50% of the cars at the e30 picnic had a 24v swap. Somehow building NA or FI m20s has become a cool thing.

Or maybe I'm biased because I'm building an m20...

[ZeKahr]

What became popular in the last 5 years? I'd say the m20. I remember when 24v swaps were the cool thing to do and that's all that people wanted. I'd say that at least 50% of the cars at the e30 picnic had a 24v swap. Somehow building NA or FI m20s has become a cool thing.

Or maybe I'm biased because I'm building an m20...

M20s are becoming more popular because E30s are increasingly becoming collector items and collectors/speculators (as well as rich purists) who spend big money on these ancient BMWs want them stock or as close to stock as possible. In 10-20 years when the E30 community is (hopefully) more mature than it is today and the E30 is as collectible as a 60s American muscle car, you're going to see people obsessing over things that seem petty today most E30 owners like VIN matching body parts, VIN matching engines/transmissions, the original radio/steering wheel/wheels are present on the car, original suspension parts, original paperwork that came with the car, etc. Already seeing that kind of talk within the 02 community and it's only a matter of time before I expect to see it in the E30 community.

[Mulletproofed]

Yea, that sounds correct. My father still has his 1969 roadrunner when he was young. He modified it when he was younger, but luckily has all the original parts in a box as that is what makes it worth more money. I took the same approach and when I do any changes I keep the original items in a box. Do you think this rise will also happen to E36s?

[McGyver]

Yea, that sounds correct. My father still has his 1969 roadrunner when he was young. He modified it when he was younger, but luckily has all the original parts in a box as that is what makes it worth more money. I took the same approach and when I do any changes I keep the original items in a box. Do you think this rise will also happen to E36s?

Eventually, but get ready to wait another 30 years. There are fewer e36's out there than I expected. Used to be a ton everywhere like e30s in the 2010s.

[ZeKahr]

Yea, that sounds correct. My father still has his 1969 roadrunner when he was young. He modified it when he was younger, but luckily has all the original parts in a box as that is what makes it worth more money. I took the same approach and when I do any changes I keep the original items in a box. Do you think this rise will also happen to E36s?

Yes, the E36 will rise in value as they hit 30+ years old and people deplete the supply of nice examples by doing Bobo shit with them, but the E36’s price rise will happen not as dramatically as the E30. Despite the E36 being a massive technological leap over the E30, the car had build quality issues which soured enthusiasts opinions on it. Another big factor is that the E36 M3 isn’t like the E30 M3; the latter was a low production homologation special, while the former was a higher performing variant of a standard 325i (at least here on US shores) that had much higher production numbers. The M3 variant of a generation is a strong driver of enthusiasts opinion of the rest of the models in that generation.

The E36 will rise in value like the E21 (which is about as forgotten/ignored as Gen X) than it will like the E30. The E46, on the other hand, is on the verge of becoming the next E30 in terms of price rise. It’s hype factor will be that the E46 M3 is the last NA I6 M3 and that the E46 had much better build quality than the E36

[lukeADE335i]

Not sure what happened with the e46 in the US, but in Australia a whole bunch of them were bought back and crushed by BMW themselves because of unsolvable airbag issues. A nice LCI 330i is going to appreciate fairly quickly in the future when they become collectable, most of the pre-LCI cars were bought back and crushed.

Nice cars OP - I wish I had bought more of them back in the day. Still, I’m glad I have my car with all the goodies it has on it that I picked up through the 2000s and early 2010s, as there’s no way I could afford them now.

[82eye]

folk have started going nuts over oem and oem+ cars here. i've got an oem+ 325i numbers matching but period modded. it's got a couple small things like a husco and a flashy heckblende, folk crawl all over me to buy it just because of those silly small details. i think our market is a little different though.