Will people ever stop molesting E30s en masse?

[TobyB]

NONE of my cars are stock, from the 2002 to the E46.

I'm too old to change now, so M54B30, here we come!

t
building a stroker 351 for the pickup, even

[E30-325iS]

There will always be some one willing to rip out the ABS or paint their car with chassis paint.

[Andrew325is]

I don't think it's going to stop, but we'll see less of it as clean examples and good parts become harder to find. What makes E30s so tempting and easy to molest are the huge number of parts from other BMWs (& other cars) that are easy to install. That's part of what is so fun about E30s. If you don't like the engine your car came with there are other engines you can swap in to suit your tastes better. There are so many choices. Some people want absolute power (LS or boost), some people want the pinnacle of BMW Motorsport engineering (S54), some people like something smooth and torquey (M20 or M30), some like fun revs and efficiency for everyday driving (M42), and some want the original and best E30 Motorsport experience (S14).

There are some E30s I think it would be best to leave them completely original though, like an M3 or a mint low-miler, but people are going to do what they want. I still sell quite a few S54 harnesses for M3s. I wouldn't personally pull an S14 out, but some people are. There are some other things I wouldn't do that a lot of people do too like slamming an E30 or treating it very poorly. I think mods should be done well and look nice. Don't skimp! Some people make mods just because they're too cheap to do something the right way. I'm not going to pass judgement on other peoples' cars though. All E30s are great and most of their owners are too.

One thing I would argue against is keeping an E30 all-original just to maximize potential future value. Cars make poor investments and their prices go up and down. It's like gambling or the stock market. If you want to keep an E30 all-original do it because it makes you happy, not for any other reason. If you think it'll make you more happy to mod it then by all means go ahead! :)

[E30 Wagen]

I don't understand the complaints about people who treat their e30s, or any nice car for that matter, like garage queens and only drive them sparingly in nice weather or to shows or whatever. It's their property and if they get a lot of enjoyment from simply having a nice car and driving it on certain occasions to reduce the chances of an accident then stfu! It's especially irritating when I see people complaining about owners of high performance exotics who supposedly never drive them. I think what they're really complaining about is that they don't get to drive them. Don't you understand that some of those cars are very rare and very expensive, so if something were to happen to it it would be heartbreaking and impossible to replace? As we near 2020 I'll include mint or meticulously built/restored e30s in this. I'll keep my mouth shut if you swap the engine and hack the fenders for some awful lick 'em and stick 'em widebody kit on your clean 325is, so how about you do the same for the guy that only takes his stock M3 out a few times a year.

/rant

[varg]

fun revs...(M42)

M42s are not rev happy engines, they fall off after 6,000rpm and are dead after 6,500...

[packratbimmer]

First one must define car molestation. Is tasteful modification molestation?

[Melon]

People gonna people.
It's the variety of the E30 ownership spectrum that makes it interesting.

I get people coming up to me saying that they love seeing a restored car out on the Autocross pad.
People like Jordan build museum quality cars.
Others swap Frankenstein engines into them and drift the fenders off.

They're cars enjoy them
Long live the E30!

[Melon]

First one must define car molestation. Is tasteful modification molestation?

Where on the plasti-dip did he touch you?

[Andrew325is]

M42s are not rev happy engines, they fall off after 6,000rpm and are dead after 6,500...

We already know you’re not an M42 guy. You’re an M20 guy and that’s okay.

[rturbo 930]

There will always be some one willing to rip out the ABS or paint their car with chassis paint.

Lol my thoughts exactly.

[jeenyus]

I like everything about the e30 scene. You don't find many cars where you can do it all from low end dirt-bagging to high end garage queens. It's amazing. You get some of the smartest, most capable people and you also get some of the dumbest least capable people. it's very fun! As people continue to run through them like they will never stop existing I bet prices eventually go up for stock versions.

[varg]

We already know you’re not an M42 guy. You’re an M20 guy and that’s okay.

I'm just sick of people parroting a tired line that flat out isn't true. Drive a car with an I4 that does love to rev and you'll learn that the M42 absolutely does not. I had one for years, I did a lot more to it and with it than most people who actually like it have done, it's an opinion that was earned. It's a loathsome engine for anything but trying to get the most fuel economy possible out of the car, seriously let down by its crummy little econobox cams.

[djjerme]

With the amount of Model T’s that have been/are being turned into rat rods or are engine-swapped on the market today, it seems like the Model T is turning into the German equivalent of the VW Bug with unmolested examples getting harder and harder to find. Do you guys ever see this trend reversing at some point in say the next 10-20 years and the ratio of unmolested Model T’s to molested Model T’s on the market will be higher than it is today?

I back dated your quote so you sound like even more of a curmudgeon. You could insert ANY popular car in that paragraph and it’d be timely to any generation. In the end, people we going to do what they want to their own car. Just worry about your cars and less about trying to “save” every original car out there. Like others have said, when they are not as popular any more, then yes, most of the hacked up ones will disappear. Disappear in to scrap yards and you’ll find yourself with less and less parts supplies because BMW ain’t ADDING E30 parts to their catalogue (only subtracting). Enjoy it, these are the glory days for the E30. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ZeKahr]

I'm just sick of people parroting a tired line that flat out isn't true. Drive a car with an I4 that does love to rev and you'll learn that the M42 absolutely does not. I had one for years, I did a lot more to it and with it than most people who actually like it have done, it's an opinion that was earned. It's a loathsome engine for anything but trying to get the most fuel economy possible out of the car, seriously let down by its crummy little econobox cams.

I have to agree here. Lots of car engines rev to 6500 RPM... I would not consider an engine with that redline as one that "loves to rev". Maybe you could say about the M10 and M30 back when they were new and engines that revved past 5000 RPM were a foreign concept to Americans. But by the late 80s a lot of import engines could rev to 6500 RPM or close to it. If you want to talk about an 4-banger that loves to rev from that era, refer the S14 or the pitiful torqueless lumps Honda installs into Civics.

I back dated your quote so you sound like even more of a curmudgeon. You could insert ANY popular car in that paragraph and it’d be timely to any generation. In the end, people we going to do what they want to their own car. Just worry about your cars and less about trying to “save” every original car out there. Like others have said, when they are not as popular any more, then yes, most of the hacked up ones will disappear. Disappear in to scrap yards and you’ll find yourself with less and less parts supplies because BMW ain’t ADDING E30 parts to their catalogue (only subtracting). Enjoy it, these are the glory days for the E30. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm not hell bent on saving every original E30 out there. I just want there to be enough unmolested examples for me to buy for relatively cheap (I'm talking like $10k max) and drive them for as long as I am able to drive. I'm not going to stick my current one (or future ones) in a garage and baby it while only driving it very carefully every month or two... that's a stupid extreme just like tearing up an E30 to turn into a drift car IMO. Condition-wise, I'll keep my car somewhere between a #4 (fair) and #3 (good) on the Hagerty condition spectrum. If I made mine too nice, I'd be afraid to daily drive it. These cars were meant to be driven, but now that they have all attain this mature age of 30-40 years old, I personally think they should be driven a little bit more gently to preserve the good examples, which are shrinking in number year over year.

[Andrew325is]

I'm just sick of people parroting a tired line that flat out isn't true. Drive a car with an I4 that does love to rev and you'll learn that the M42 absolutely does not. I had one for years, I did a lot more to it and with it than most people who actually like it have done, it's an opinion that was earned. It's a loathsome engine for anything but trying to get the most fuel economy possible out of the car, seriously let down by its crummy little econobox cams.

I didn't say loves to rev to high RPMs, but I stand by the statement "loves to rev" because it does. 4 cylinder engines rev up faster than 6s or 8s because there is less rotating mass. You had expectations for the engine that it couldn't meet for you and that's okay. There are a lot of people who don't share your sentiment that it's "loathsome" and has "crummy econobox cams." That's your opinion and that's all it is.