Hartge H26 325 for sale

[Mercury[BKM]]

pretty sexy, someone buy it and part me the wheels!

[mikeedler]

I would bet that if that car was ever really in Germany (besides being built) that it was a soldier at the time that had a few Hartge pieces installed at a dealership.


Looks like a hodge podge of IE parts on that car. super clean, but not anything more than a bronzit car with a few Hartge pieces bolted to it.

the only things I see Hartge on that car are the old azz steering wheel, valve cover, strut brace, dead pedal, and the valances-- which are all nice pieces BTW!

[SoCal323i]

-"US Spec. 325ia car prepared by Hartge in Germany – delivered through the “Fly & Drive” program. The vehicle was purchased new throughVasek Polak BMW in Hermosa Beach, Ca. The original service booklet & manual verify. My Jung picked out his options & order/pay for the car.The German plant would send the vehicle to Hartge Mfg. to have the options installed. Being in the “Fly & Drive” program (started by Porsche). The buyer would fly over to Germany, take delivery at the plant, drive around Europe for a time, drop the car back at the plant, where the manufacturer would ship the car to the US dealer."

[mikeedler]

^ I call B.S. why would BMW send a car to Hartge? Hartge is a tuner, and had nothing whatsoever to do with BMW A.G. how would this all be paid for an through who? woud BMW do this today?---- NO. so why would they have done that in the 80's. I bet it was possible to buy a car through Hartge, but not through BMW with Hartge stuff.

Not that I am positive on any of that, but I would be willing to bet....

[reelizmpro]

BMW does do this except they do the mods themselves now through BMW individual. Given BMW's relationship with other "tuners" like Alpina and AC Schnitzer, it isn't that hard to believe. Sounds like they are talking about the euro delivery program. Perhaps the buyer arranged for the car to be picked up by Hartge while it was "released" into his possession while still in Germany. Perhaps he arranged to have BMW send it to Hartge ...who knows. It's certainly possible. Almost anything is possible with enough money.

[M-technik-3]

Car was an automatic and was just recently converted to a manual. I'm doubting the write up on this car. Much like this fakey.

http://www.bimmerworld.com/view_project.php?id=72157623562827969

[RonP]

I know some of you want to feel like your knowledge about this car is the gospel, but this is a real Hartge car and all of the ad is exactly how it happened. The previous owner of this car is a really good friend of mine and had all the documentation from BMW and Hartge. I brokered the car from him to the present owner and saw all of it presented in a binder. I have known this car since before the previous owner and asked all of the same questions about it. Since the car is a 1989 and BMW had pretty much imploded all of the grey market cars by then, and it was suspicious to me that a car like this was able to get through the system, but Vasek Polak had a very good personal relationship with both the BMW and the Porsche factory. Vasek was the first BMW dealer in Los Angeles in 1964 and was hand picked by Max Hoffman.

I urged the present owner to swap the autotragic to a manual shift car as from my experience, the slush box cars just don't get any traction from true enthusiasts.

I also questioned the placement of the rear badges, but was assured that they were like that from the factory. Having owned two "real" Hartge H5S in my life, I had never seen the badges done like that.

[e30rida]

Bottom line is that if it was a Hartge built car in Beckingen then it would have a Hartge exclusive VIN number which would immediately have made it impossible to get into the states through legal channels other than federalization (doubt it) or military personel car which then would make the VP story contradictory. Alpina and Team Schnitzer have always had a closer relation to BMW so that is another thing, as BMW has for a long time approved and sold Alpina products in their European showrooms and not the case with Hartge. So of course you want to pass it off as a real Hartge since you probably pushed the car to the current owner under that premise. If this was an '83-86 before Hartge got approved by the TUV as a car manufacturer maybe, otherwise like Mike said it is a very nice car with unobtainable Hartge parts, but just probably bought as an euro delivery, owner drove it to hartge, got all the H26 options installed and then some how got it through US customs and vasek polak unnoticed. Other than that the car was in no way shipped directly from BMW to Hartge, again if it would have then the VIN number would have been assigned a new Hartge specific number with a Hartge VIN tag. And I don't know anything about this particular car other than what I see in the pics but I know Hartge stuff, I used to hang out all the time at Perfomance Plus in Dania Bch in my younger years. Plus I still have all the original catalogs, build sheets, panflets, Ultimate Source catalogs, letters from Hartge and Hartge Canada etc etc. from back in the day. But again I'm not pretending to know or want to feel that I know anything about this car just relating what I see on the literature I have vs. the pics I saw, for all I know it should still fetch $15-20K comfortably as it is a gorgeous car.

[RonP]

My Alpina B6 (e30) has a special v.i.n. #, but my Hartge H5S had a regular BMW v.i.n.#. so, I don't get the "special" vin# from Hartge. I have owned two H5S Hartges and neither one had a Hartge special vin. However, I do have some buy in that BMW didn't ship the car to Hartge for an H26 conversion.

[e30rida]

My Alpina B6 (e30) has a special v.i.n. #, but my Hartge H5S had a regular BMW v.i.n.#. so, I don't get the "special" vin# from Hartge. I have owned two H5S Hartges and neither one had a Hartge special vin. However, I do have some buy in that BMW didn't ship the car to Hartge for an H26 conversion.

Because your H5s must be an '84-'86 model, and I bet a million bucks it was imported by Performance Plus as all grey market H23's, H26's, H28's, H5's, H7's and for sure one H35 I remember of were at the time. I'm not 100% on the year but right after the US closed the gray market, Performance Plus closed and shortly after Hartge got manufacturer status in DE and then it started using the numbered VIN tags (and it's not a Hartge VIN tag with the BMW given VIN it's a new number that the TUV or Hartge came up with) In my 30 years of nosing around BMW's I've never seen a Hartge VIN car in the states, all of them I've seen have been in Europe and a couple in Japan. So unless someone went through the painful process of federalizing a Hartge built E30 after '87 I highly doubt there are any in the states. So it's not really a bad thing to not have the Hartge VIN tag the car on ebay, I would just not call it a Hartge built/delivered car. And again it's still an extremely unique and valuable vehicle. Hope the seller get's what it is worth.

[M-technik-3]

If the car is a special as said then I am surprised the owner does not have the receipt documenting it was done at Hartge. I know I have a nice three ring binder with receipts for my M3's.

[mikeedler]

Like I stated before, I think the car is a very cool car with many nice parts, but the story seems kinda (cooler than reality)

My wife worked for a local dentist here, (BIG money P car guy) when his son turned 18 about 10 years ago, his B-day present was a 325i 4 door(E30)-- but the real treat was father and son brought the car to AC Schnitzer in Aachen and stayed in a hotel down the street for a week and got to come everyday and (hang out) and watch the transformation of the car.----
kinda the story I think that more-so relates to the (OP) car.

I have no real idea about that car in general, but I do work at a dealership over here and do put together atleast 2 to 3 AC Schnitzer cars for our dealership every year.
all the Alpina cars get delivered completely finished.

[CabrioPunk]

Looks great. Bronzit looks good in that kit and decal set.

[IronmanE30]

I just want to say that I know the last two owners and the details of how the car was purchased from it's original owner here in California. The 2nd and 3rd owners of this car are old school BMW enthusiasts and enjoy the hunt for documentation on their cars. Both have had and still have some very nice rare BMW's. I have never known either of them to say something to "make a sale" that was not based upon their diligent research. I believe the data posted on Ebay and believe this to be the real thing. I have seen the car in person and it is beautiful. I would love to have this car but the timing is not right.

Cheers,

Jim

[AirplaneBuilder]

Still a nice looking car regardless of all the suspicion!