Ownership Log: 1988 Alpine White Over Pacific Blue Sport Cloth M20B25 325iX
I've been into these cars long enough that I have a routine search for them I conduct daily out of habit at this point. After a long day of helping a car buddy with his project car, I came home exhausted and skipped my usual routine. That somehow caused this ad to not show up on my search until five days after it was posted:
Well, I knew I missed this one for sure. The nicest cars don't last five hours before someone starts the buying process, and five days was an eternity. I e-mailed the seller anyway, and wrote a carefully crafted response that would let them know that I fully appreciated what was on offer and would be an ideal next owner without being too obvious. The seller wrote me a nice reply telling me it was sold the day it was listed, and was waiting for a deposit before taking down the ad, but had just received a deposit from the buyer.
The ad disappeared, and that was that until a few weeks later.
This was the first view I had of the 325iX that was soon to be mine, parked by the seller (who obviously knew how to present a car) on a dead end road overlooking Lake Huron. The seller had posted the sort of ad that you reply to immediately when you get familiar with looking for cars, and the car was the sort of car that you know immediately you aren't leaving home without before you even look inside the interior.
I introduced myself and Lindsay, thanked him again for the e-mail he had sent me (more on that later), and said, "Yup, I'm buying this car. Here's your money." The seller asked, "Don't you even want to start it up?" I said, "Oh I'll take it for a test drive, sure, but I'm not leaving without this car."
I was looking at a Japanese market 1988 early model 325iX with under 90,000 km imported into Canada well before the Fukushima Daiichi disaster. Fully serviced at the BMW dealer, never driven in salt since new, and most importantly as rust free as any early model I've ever seen, all for less than half of fair market value.
My e-mail with the seller had exactly the intended effect: he really wanted me to get the car, and when his sale fell through as the first would be buyer struggled to arrange to ship the car and pay for it, he refunded the deposit and wrote me a nice e-mail. I called immediately, and went to pick it up the next day.
Lindsay was nice enough to drive me there in her stunning 316i Design Edition touring, which I'm sure helped to reinforce we were the seller's kind of people. He had a small side business importing cars from Japan for friends and family, and had imported this for his aunt. It turned out the car was in the nicest condition of any he brought over, and when his aunt died the car went to his mother, then eventually to us as she could no longer drive it.
I had planned on giving the car a full cosmetic refresh, enjoying it for a while, then selling it... before I drove it. No other E30 I've driven (which is quite a few now) feels anything like this car. I have no room for it, and it's consumed my entire hobby fund, but I'm going to hang on to this one as long as I can.
Well, I knew I missed this one for sure. The nicest cars don't last five hours before someone starts the buying process, and five days was an eternity. I e-mailed the seller anyway, and wrote a carefully crafted response that would let them know that I fully appreciated what was on offer and would be an ideal next owner without being too obvious. The seller wrote me a nice reply telling me it was sold the day it was listed, and was waiting for a deposit before taking down the ad, but had just received a deposit from the buyer.
The ad disappeared, and that was that until a few weeks later.
This was the first view I had of the 325iX that was soon to be mine, parked by the seller (who obviously knew how to present a car) on a dead end road overlooking Lake Huron. The seller had posted the sort of ad that you reply to immediately when you get familiar with looking for cars, and the car was the sort of car that you know immediately you aren't leaving home without before you even look inside the interior.
I introduced myself and Lindsay, thanked him again for the e-mail he had sent me (more on that later), and said, "Yup, I'm buying this car. Here's your money." The seller asked, "Don't you even want to start it up?" I said, "Oh I'll take it for a test drive, sure, but I'm not leaving without this car."
I was looking at a Japanese market 1988 early model 325iX with under 90,000 km imported into Canada well before the Fukushima Daiichi disaster. Fully serviced at the BMW dealer, never driven in salt since new, and most importantly as rust free as any early model I've ever seen, all for less than half of fair market value.
My e-mail with the seller had exactly the intended effect: he really wanted me to get the car, and when his sale fell through as the first would be buyer struggled to arrange to ship the car and pay for it, he refunded the deposit and wrote me a nice e-mail. I called immediately, and went to pick it up the next day.
Lindsay was nice enough to drive me there in her stunning 316i Design Edition touring, which I'm sure helped to reinforce we were the seller's kind of people. He had a small side business importing cars from Japan for friends and family, and had imported this for his aunt. It turned out the car was in the nicest condition of any he brought over, and when his aunt died the car went to his mother, then eventually to us as she could no longer drive it.
I had planned on giving the car a full cosmetic refresh, enjoying it for a while, then selling it... before I drove it. No other E30 I've driven (which is quite a few now) feels anything like this car. I have no room for it, and it's consumed my entire hobby fund, but I'm going to hang on to this one as long as I can.
(not enough garage space, though)!
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