I apologize ahead of time for the long-winded intro.
After years of not having an E30, I've decided it's time to dive back in.
Randomly found out a coworker had an "old BMW" sitting around at his parents place. I then received pictures of a straight, but well-worn Royalblau/Beige houndstooth '87 325 (nearly identical to the E30 I had in high school). We struck a fair deal and I'm back to being an E30 owner. It's not the greatest platform to start with, as it's equipped with an anemic ETA and an auto, but hear me out.
I originally had visions in my head of a stripped out, caged, M30 turbo weekend warrior. Then my sensible side took over... Build a nice car that I can enjoy on the weekends with the family and take on road trips, all while maintaining the original character.
Fast-forward to 4 days ago. I'm out in the junkyard looking for a steering column for my daily beater S10 and stuck back in a far corner of the yard I spy a nearly complete and decent looking '87 325iS... Alpine White on Cardinal, sport seats, 5-speed... everything. I tried to convince them to sell me the whole car, but they wouldn't. I could only imagine how much time and money it would've taken to get everything I needed off of it. I went home disappointed.
I get a phone call a couple of days ago from my dad saying, "Hey, that BMW from the junkyard you wanted, I'm towing it home." By some miracle, he talked them into selling the whole car for scrap price.
Now here we are. I'm going to swap everything I can from the parts car over to the 325... engine, trans, diff, interior... everything. Of course all seals, bushings, etc. will be replaced and upgraded where necessary.
It being a diving board car, I'm probably going to swap in a set of Euro bumpers too along with various other Euro bits here and there.
I expect it'll be a relatively slow-paced build, but I'm looking forward to it.
325 Project by Bradley Bearden, on Flickr
325iS Parts Car by Bradley Bearden, on Flickr
After years of not having an E30, I've decided it's time to dive back in.
Randomly found out a coworker had an "old BMW" sitting around at his parents place. I then received pictures of a straight, but well-worn Royalblau/Beige houndstooth '87 325 (nearly identical to the E30 I had in high school). We struck a fair deal and I'm back to being an E30 owner. It's not the greatest platform to start with, as it's equipped with an anemic ETA and an auto, but hear me out.
I originally had visions in my head of a stripped out, caged, M30 turbo weekend warrior. Then my sensible side took over... Build a nice car that I can enjoy on the weekends with the family and take on road trips, all while maintaining the original character.
Fast-forward to 4 days ago. I'm out in the junkyard looking for a steering column for my daily beater S10 and stuck back in a far corner of the yard I spy a nearly complete and decent looking '87 325iS... Alpine White on Cardinal, sport seats, 5-speed... everything. I tried to convince them to sell me the whole car, but they wouldn't. I could only imagine how much time and money it would've taken to get everything I needed off of it. I went home disappointed.
I get a phone call a couple of days ago from my dad saying, "Hey, that BMW from the junkyard you wanted, I'm towing it home." By some miracle, he talked them into selling the whole car for scrap price.
Now here we are. I'm going to swap everything I can from the parts car over to the 325... engine, trans, diff, interior... everything. Of course all seals, bushings, etc. will be replaced and upgraded where necessary.
It being a diving board car, I'm probably going to swap in a set of Euro bumpers too along with various other Euro bits here and there.
I expect it'll be a relatively slow-paced build, but I'm looking forward to it.
325 Project by Bradley Bearden, on Flickr325iS Parts Car by Bradley Bearden, on Flickr
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