Bimmer mag: The “is” mystique

[evandael]

Wow, I need to stay the hell away from puristville.

Enjoy your bottlecaps. I'll take my huge rims, tasteless 24v, etc.

fronton has an s38b36 and bbs rs. hurr durrr.


i'll gladly take a beaten car and resto-mod it with newer, more modern parts (in fact, i'm doing that). but i would have a very difficult time changing a time-capsule car or even an unloved, original survivor. something restored to its original condition is hard to pass up for value, taste, and period-correct fun.

[Cletonius]

A nice article... I am going to need new shocks in my vert and I was considering trying the stock sachs... I have never actually driven or rode in an e30 with sachs

My car has them, it rode really nice until the 20 year old bushings started to get weak

[M-technik-3]

Stock Sach's are not worth it. Overrated buy some Bilstein HD's. Bilstein's were OEM as well.

[SubDad]

Wow, I need to stay the hell away from puristville.

I'm the self-declared mayor of Puristville.

Under my administration my bottlecaps will get replaced with the basketweaves I bought and cleaned up last fall and the four spoke steering wheel of surpassing ugliness gets replaced with the MTech 1 wheel I bought at Christmas.
I'd like to replace the "comfort" (Hah, comfort my a**...no wait..that doesn't work - comfort my :roll: ) seats with the sports seats that left with my 325is.

Yes, I should have swapped all the cool 325is stuff into my 320, but I didn't.

Purist doesn't mean No Cool Stuff, BMW made plenty of cool stuff and installed it in the 325is. But I'm not putting on stretched tires with goofy camber.

[Holland]

I really miss having a stock car. Not that I wish mine was stock, but I would love to have another stock car.

[agent]

I really miss having a stock car. Not that I wish mine was stock, but I would love to have another stock car.

That's all the reason anyone needs to have two.

[M-technik-3]

I'm the self-declared mayor of Puristville.

Under my administration my bottlecaps will get replaced with the basketweaves I bought and cleaned up last fall and the four spoke steering wheel of surpassing ugliness gets replaced with the MTech 1 wheel I bought at Christmas.
I'd like to replace the "comfort" (Hah, comfort my a**...no wait..that doesn't work - comfort my :roll: ) seats with the sports seats that left with my 325is.

Yes, I should have swapped all the cool 325is stuff into my 320, but I didn't.

Purist doesn't mean No Cool Stuff, BMW made plenty of cool stuff and installed it in the 325is. But I'm not putting on stretched tires with goofy camber.

Hat to say it Mr Mayor but I'd have yanked that boat anchor of an engine for a m20b25 any day of week.

I owned an early 320i about 13 years ago and it was a dog. Gas mileage is poorer than a 325is and it's slower. Cool that it's a CLEAN early chassis but a simple bump in displacement would make it a great car.

[reelizmpro]

Stock e30's are a novelty. They are cool to a few people until they sell them and the subsequent owners mod them. Most "stock" parts don't even make sense anymore when their are better alternatives out there. If the car is collectible, I understand preserving it in its natural state but an iS isn't that exclusive.

[evandael]

^not today, but in another 10 years a pristine, all-stock e30 will be a rare thing indeed.

[SubDad]

I owned an early 320i about 13 years ago and it was a dog. Gas mileage is poorer than a 325is and it's slower.

Yeah, it is truly slow. And it's L-Jetronic as you'll recall. It's kinda funny how slow it is and as soon as I stop laughing I'll swap in an proper M20B25 with Motronic.

In the meantime I've got my throttle foot down 'til it's time to brake, snapping shifts like cheap DSG and getting beaten at the stoplight drags by Honda Fits.

But I make better noise and I'm having fun.

[agent]

If the car is collectible, I understand preserving it in its natural state but an iS isn't that exclusive.

That was true before SpecE30, ChumpCar and before the "scene" popularity, though values continue to climb as the numbers continue to wane. Well-sorted OEM+ examples are fetching nearly double today what they did five years ago, and their worth is only going to continue to go up.

[leegf]

one of the cars featured in the article is now for sale:

http://enthusiastauto.com/qsearch/?id=4493&form_display=51#.USjWizA4vfI

mark my words, it will sell at or close to ask (if it hasn't already).

[keflaman]

I can appreciate both sides of the argument. A few years ago I bought an E30 318is while in Italy and since I knew I would be selling it when it was time to transfer, I concentrated on rebuilding the suspension with stock parts. It was a nice little ride and well suited for the roads in, and surrounding, Napoli. I don't think people can appreciate how well a "new" stock suspension rides until they try it.

After returning to the States, I bought a '91 318is that was basically stock except for the annoying Vibrant exhaust and JOM "suspension". I tossed those items out and went with Billies/HR Sports w/drophats, E36 rack, and BMW OEM suspension bits. I like the way it handles, rides, and LOOKS with the few almost indiscernible "mods" I have done. I also installed cruise control, lighted mirror and 13 button OBC; everything for the heated seats install is sitting on the shelf next to the premium speakers. Eventually I'll install the sport steering wheel and convert to a power sunroof. And as a side note, I never throw away the stock parts.

The car currently sits on stock, square basketweaves the PO used for winters in Chicago. By "square" I don't mean rims with equal width X diameter, but rather, they've hit so many potholes there isn't a round section on any of them; more like four straight sides. The spare tire that came with the car doesn't have a mark on it and a parts car spare is in almost the same shape. I sourced two more, almost perfect rims that will have a set of stock sized, low mileage tires mounted to. The car came with a set of BBS RS wheels (stretched tires included) and they've been sitting at the other end of the garage for over a year. They look great, but "stance" ain't where I'm at with this car.

Sitting on the other side of the garage is another 318is with faded DS paint under a peeling clearcoat. There are DOT-R stickers on three of four corners, and the body panels sort of line up with each other. I bought the car for $500 as a post-swap/parts-roller with the intentions of swapping the rust-free suspension and scrapping the rest.

Then came along an okay deal on a crashed 24V swapped car with racecar suspension, drivetrain, and decent interior.

Somewhere in between, or on top of all that, an S50 shortblock ended up in another corner of the garage.

And then a thread on building an M50B30 with M54 internals................

Sorry for the long-winded reply. I edited it for brevity.:p

[I8UR911]

Great article. Bought the issue @ Barnes and noble when it came out. Own a 91 318is with little mods in very nice condition.....not a time capsule car, but nice.

Sent from my XT907 using Tapatalk 2

[nando]

the funny thing is those bone stock cars probably handle better overall than half of the "lowering spring" cars here.

but some things like shocks, springs, and definitely bottlecaps (ugh) can be upgraded tastefully and still leave the car stock.

yeah, they made a lot of "is" cars but really, how many nice ones do you see anymore? All the E30s I see are total hackjobs that I wouldn't pay $500 for.