I sort of impulse bought a 325is in mid-08. Did a few small things (tires, stereo, etc) and daily drove it while all of my other cars were broken.
Here's the car as I picked it up.
E30 Project by maximstensel, on Flickr
(don't worry about the visible plate, they've been changed. )
It looks rough, but had a few things in it's favor. The head was a newly rebuilt one. The body was straight and everything was there. It had every visible option available, OBC, sport seats (tan cloth) with a bad hinge but very nice fabric, MTech wheel, rear spoiler, etc. Obviously the front spoiler has been replaced with one from another car I sprayed it with matte black trim paint, so at least it looks semi-decent now.
Anyway, two things happened that put the E30 story on hold. I met my current girlfriend, who lived 400mi away, and drove the E30 there, used it for a month, and then drove it home. The day after I got home, I went to move the car, and the clutch was just completely non-functional. I was going back up to move in with her full-time, and had been planning on getting a real new car for ages, so I bought a brand new Civic Si sedan and moved out with it.
That was two and a half years ago. A few months ago, I'm down in LA at my parents' place, and while getting my other old car (02 WRX) into the shop so I can sell it, we decide that we should get the E30 cleaned up some as well. So it goes in, gets a lot of stuff fixed up, and is now pretty mechanically sound. Meanwhile, it looks like my younger brother (21) is finally getting his license (I think he's failed 9 times), and my mom decides that giving him her beat- up Prius is the best bet. But what is she going to drive? Well, there's a pretty cool classic BMW parked in front of the house! So she calls me a few weeks ago, and says that if she can drive it for a while, she'll help fix it up.
So here I am, with the car off of the back burner, figuring out how to get it nice again. Going to start with some small stuff, recovering the wheel, fixing the seats, new shift knob and boot, new under dash panel, etc, and see how it goes from there I wish I had some newer pics, they resprayed the wheels and buffed the paint up some while in the shop, I'll take some when I'm in social again. (next month?)
Here's the car as I picked it up.
E30 Project by maximstensel, on Flickr
(don't worry about the visible plate, they've been changed. )
It looks rough, but had a few things in it's favor. The head was a newly rebuilt one. The body was straight and everything was there. It had every visible option available, OBC, sport seats (tan cloth) with a bad hinge but very nice fabric, MTech wheel, rear spoiler, etc. Obviously the front spoiler has been replaced with one from another car I sprayed it with matte black trim paint, so at least it looks semi-decent now.
Anyway, two things happened that put the E30 story on hold. I met my current girlfriend, who lived 400mi away, and drove the E30 there, used it for a month, and then drove it home. The day after I got home, I went to move the car, and the clutch was just completely non-functional. I was going back up to move in with her full-time, and had been planning on getting a real new car for ages, so I bought a brand new Civic Si sedan and moved out with it.
That was two and a half years ago. A few months ago, I'm down in LA at my parents' place, and while getting my other old car (02 WRX) into the shop so I can sell it, we decide that we should get the E30 cleaned up some as well. So it goes in, gets a lot of stuff fixed up, and is now pretty mechanically sound. Meanwhile, it looks like my younger brother (21) is finally getting his license (I think he's failed 9 times), and my mom decides that giving him her beat- up Prius is the best bet. But what is she going to drive? Well, there's a pretty cool classic BMW parked in front of the house! So she calls me a few weeks ago, and says that if she can drive it for a while, she'll help fix it up.
So here I am, with the car off of the back burner, figuring out how to get it nice again. Going to start with some small stuff, recovering the wheel, fixing the seats, new shift knob and boot, new under dash panel, etc, and see how it goes from there I wish I had some newer pics, they resprayed the wheels and buffed the paint up some while in the shop, I'll take some when I'm in social again. (next month?)