Bring a Trailer Auctions, E30 edition

[Nader393]

I've said this before, and I'll say it again, especially now that such an absurd sale was made; these cars are good, but not that good. Remember, it's a 2700 lb car with 192 h.p., and it hardly comes alive until after 5K RPM. $102K? That's easily gated Ferrari 360 money. Porsche GT3 money. Real car money.

OTOH, a mildly tuned, $10K e30 325 will have 99% of the driving experience, and zero anxiety to flog it.

[varg]

Yeah but the people who are paying $102k for it aren't into it for the driving dynamics and performance, they're into telling other people that they have one, occasionally attending car shows and looking at it in the garage. E30 M3s haven't been a good performance/driving experience car for the money for a few years now. Hell, the day I realized E30 M3 prices surpassed FD RX7 prices I completely lost interest in ever owning one, it's good but not that good. If you gave me an E30 M3 today it would be freshly detailed and on the market tomorrow so I could buy something better.

Who's EAG?

A company that sells "concours quality" cars for millionaire-with-a-midlife-crisis prices. As I recall one guy on here bought a 318is from them for something like $25,000 a while back and had issues with it immediately afterwards. I like to picture an exceedingly smooth-talking buy-here-pay-here used car salesman with a Patek Philippe on his wrist.

[gte175x]

I've said this before, and I'll say it again, especially now that such an absurd sale was made; these cars are good, but not that good. Remember, it's a 2700 lb car with 192 h.p., and it hardly comes alive until after 5K RPM. $102K? That's easily gated Ferrari 360 money. Porsche GT3 money. Real car money.

OTOH, a mildly tuned, $10K e30 325 will have 99% of the driving experience, and zero anxiety to flog it.

I would agree - but I always thought it was because there are a lot more people out there with a lot more money than me. Maybe prices have inflated because people just have more disposable income. I wish I had that problem

[JimmyP]

You guys are so missing the point.
The E30 M3 is / was a Homologation special.
Limited run, made so that the race car could exist.

Its existence, its specifications, the design was the reverse of a normal street car like a 325is or an E36M3, or any RX7, etc etc.
Those cars existed to sell cars,,, and then people also raced them.

The E30M3 is a member of a very, very small group of cars that were designed and built to optimize everything for the homologated racing version so that the racing version could exist to win races for the factory. The street car was a byproduct, not the product like the E28M5 and the E24M6 contemporaries.
Even the legendary M1,,, was a street car first, a race car second.

You are looking at the image backwards through the telescope.
Its a collectible car because its a very special car.
Its legacy has NOTHING at all to do with its on street performance 0-60 numbers or any other crap like that. The street car exists so that the race car could.

It was the over 1400 worldwide touring car wins, it dominated pro road racing in its day like no single model has before or since.

[MrBurgundy]

^very well put.

[Nader393]

You guys are so missing the point.
The E30 M3 is / was a Homologation special.
Limited run, made so that the race car could exist.

Its existence, its specifications, the design was the reverse of a normal street car like a 325is or an E36M3, or any RX7, etc etc.
Those cars existed to sell cars,,, and then people also raced them.

The E30M3 is a member of a very, very small group of cars that were designed and built to optimize everything for the homologated racing version so that the racing version could exist to win races for the factory. The street car was a byproduct, not the product like the E28M5 and the E24M6 contemporaries.
Even the legendary M1,,, was a street car first, a race car second.

You are looking at the image backwards through the telescope.
Its a collectible car because its a very special car.
Its legacy has NOTHING at all to do with its on street performance 0-60 numbers or any other crap like that. The street car exists so that the race car could.

It was the over 1400 worldwide touring car wins, it dominated pro road racing in its day like no single model has before or since.

I know about that, and understand your allegiance to the model. I appreciate its racing heritage and successes. But what we got was so watered down, its performance was indiscernible from a 325is. It wasn't a clean sheet design, it was an optimized car already in production. Like a MB 190e 2.3-16.

[JimmyP]

Who's EAG?

The people who single handedly F*cked with a capitol F the E30 M3 market and they are trying their best to do it to any other BMW they can.

I have maximum contempt for everything to do with them.
They ruined the market on the car I love.
I would be buried in all three of my M3s before I would ever consider even talking to them about selling one to or through them.

[ForcedFirebird]

JimmyP, well said, but it's really more than that. At the time, an IROC-Z could barely muster the horsepower of an m3, albeit the Camaro would dig a deep grave in a drag race. On the highway, even an eta would put up a fight for the domestic market.

I think is what's happening is the car that was dismissed by so many growing up has turned into an icon. When the e36 hit the showroom floor, they weren't very far ahead of time on styling. In 1994 Honda followed suit, then many other makes and cars started to meld together. Right now the e46 platform is younger than when I started playing with e30's - was just chatting tonight with a group of fellas about when we met 10yr ago scourging the you pick for wheelbarrows of e30 parts, as we had rows to pick from. This week, the oldest BMW in all of the Florida you pick inventory has the oldest car pegged at 1998 and it's a 740il. Oldest 3 is 2004....

[ForcedFirebird]

Who's EAG?

The people who single handedly F*cked with a capitol F the E30 M3 market.

In a way, but the m3 sold today shows the market was not unreasonable, EAG was thinking ahead. Some people will thrive on marketing the best examples..

Are you upset that something you have such passion for is now being collected, or the fact that we have been riding this wave of sub culture before it began?

[2mAn]

OTOH, a mildly tuned, $10K e30 325 will have 99% of the driving experience, and zero anxiety to flog it.

This is why I love my 325i, even with the M20

The M3 is definitely a fun car but it’s fun factor is out the window when you’ve spent anything over $25k and even that’s a stretch. None of these current buyers are getting them to drive them and that’s sad.

[JimmyP]

Are you upset that something you have such passion for is now being collected, or the fact that we have been riding this wave of sub culture before it began?

Interesting question,,, one that is being discussed similarly on the E30M3 SIG right now because of this 102K car. So much so my thoughts were very fresh.

Here is my Get Off My Lawn - E30M3 hipster ramblings.
Lets say I and most other long time 20+ year lovers of the E30M3 on the SIG we USE our cars and don't look at it as an investment.
Those of us that will have them until we die or are too old to functionally drive them anymore. We see NO real benefits from these raises in monetary value.

BUT,,, our cost of ownership just keeps going up and up and up,,, and we didn't do anything but just wake up.

Mainly because 6-ish years ago those pricks at EAG started blowing this bubble up,,, then the rest of the speculators jumped in and started blowing the balloon even bigger,,, to 10 times what they used to cost us who were the faithful.

Now I / we go drive our cars like we always have,,, and what happens when texting soccer mom misses stop sign and plows into the back of us with her 7,000 lb. soccer mom mastodon SUV.
Now (a) we first gotta find another E30M3 as nice as the one she just crushed, (b) we have to now pay somewhere closer to 6 figures every day for that car.

Get an agreed value policy people say,,, yep,,, but now collectively we have to keep raising those to keep up with the morons blowing this balloon up,,, which (a) takes a bunch of personal time to deal with tracking the values, dealing with agents and brokers,,, and,,, (b) in the end only benefits the insurance vendor because we pay more for the now larger and larger agreed value policies.
It does nothing but cost us E30M3 loving & driving faithful more in both time and money.
We get nothing out of it.

Just completely forget about the way we used to trade parts back and forth.
People (myself included) just hoard parts quietly waiting to snatch up anything you can find under the radar.
E30M3 anything in classifieds have become almost as nonexistent as E30M3s themselves on race tracks. Much like the buffalo,,, there used to be herds and herds of E30M3s on race tacks all over. Now virtually none but the hardcore.
Everyone is too scared to track them because of their "value".

If BMW was more like Porsche, or Mazda and actually supported their older cars and all our parts were still readily available that would ease the situation some,,, but they don’t which brings us the aforementioned hoarding.

Hell if I was a 1st Gen Camaro lover I could build myself an entire brand new Z28 out of a catalog right down to the body.

So by doing nothing more than waking up, our E30M3 world (those of us that love the CAR not its monetary value and have lived and loved them for well over 20 years) gets more complicated and expensive for those of us that actually love to drive the cars. I still race mine actively.

I know I'll just keep doin' what I do,,, I have the 2 E30M3 race cars in my signature and my original 55K mile street car but the whole situation just somehow pisses me off in a very Get Off My Lawn kind of way.

Yeah, somewhere, someday I assume someone will benefit from the huge leap in monetary value all my E30M3s and spare S14s, and spare trannys, etc, etc have taken,,, but I kind of doubt that beneficiary will be me.

[JimmyP]

But what we got was so watered down, its performance was indiscernible from a 325is. It wasn't a clean sheet design, it was an optimized car already in production. Like a MB 190e 2.3-16.

I don't think you really read a word I wrote.
You just went back to the street car's performance.
Once again,,, looking at it backwards.
The street car was a byproduct, NOT "the" product.
The race car was the product that was being designed.
Try to wrap your head around it.

You know how many regular E30 body parts cross over to E30M3s?
I think,,, the hood.
But yes, they did start with an E30 shell.
The MB's street version was even slower than the E30M3.
These people were concentrating on building the race versions. They had to build and sell the street versions so they could race the real things.

[reelizmpro]

You guys are so missing the point.
The E30 M3 is / was a Homologation special.
Limited run, made so that the race car could exist.

Its existence, its specifications, the design was the reverse of a normal street car like a 325is or an E36M3, or any RX7, etc etc.
Those cars existed to sell cars,,, and then people also raced them.

The E30M3 is a member of a very, very small group of cars that were designed and built to optimize everything for the homologated racing version so that the racing version could exist to win races for the factory. The street car was a byproduct, not the product like the E28M5 and the E24M6 contemporaries.
Even the legendary M1,,, was a street car first, a race car second.

You are looking at the image backwards through the telescope.
Its a collectible car because its a very special car.
Its legacy has NOTHING at all to do with its on street performance 0-60 numbers or any other crap like that. The street car exists so that the race car could.

It was the over 1400 worldwide touring car wins, it dominated pro road racing in its day like no single model has before or since.

LOL Jimmy don't you get tired of explaining this? We all know this by now. The thing is some people simply don't care about the history or mystique surrounding the car.

[reelizmpro]

But what we got was so watered down, its performance was indiscernible from a 325is. It wasn't a clean sheet design, it was an optimized car already in production. Like a MB 190e 2.3-16.

Not really, 168HP vs 192HP the M3 just needs to driven differently. Not a huge gap but still a gap nonetheless. Same HP as the Euro counterpart with entire Grp A, N catalogs with just about every single race part available for the car. It's not like the E36 with a completely different engine or the 190e USA that got detuned to 167HP. That's watered down.

[varg]

You guys are so missing the point.
The E30 M3 is / was a Homologation special.
Limited run, made so that the race car could exist.

Its existence, its specifications, the design was the reverse of a normal street car like a 325is or an E36M3, or any RX7, etc etc.
Those cars existed to sell cars,,, and then people also raced them.

The E30M3 is a member of a very, very small group of cars that were designed and built to optimize everything for the homologated racing version so that the racing version could exist to win races for the factory. The street car was a byproduct, not the product like the E28M5 and the E24M6 contemporaries.
Even the legendary M1,,, was a street car first, a race car second.

You are looking at the image backwards through the telescope.
Its a collectible car because its a very special car.
Its legacy has NOTHING at all to do with its on street performance 0-60 numbers or any other crap like that. The street car exists so that the race car could.

It was the over 1400 worldwide touring car wins, it dominated pro road racing in its day like no single model has before or since.

I'm not missing anything. I'm acutely aware of what a homologated car is and I know the E30 M3's history. How could you not know it in this day and age? E30 fanboys have spewed it since E30 fanboys have existed and automotive media has been crowing about E30 M3s non stop for the past few years. Anyone who doesn't know about what it is is uninformed to the extent that you're wasting your time explaining it on an E30 forum of all places.

Anyway, I haven't contradicted what you're saying, I just stated the fact that once it surpassed FD RX7 prices I was no longer interested in ever owning one. "muh pedigree" and "muh homologation" doesn't go that far with me, I'm more concerned with the whole package than bragging rights so I'd rather have a faster, better looking car with a better chassis than a rolling piece of history that is worth so much money that it's hard to justify actually driving it and tanking its value. It might be a controversial opinion here, but that's how it works for me.