The Back-Up Plan: 1984 Euro E28 Saphirblau 520i Project Car
Paul (Shockwave) and I had a week off in September and were trying to think of something fun to do on a limited budget. My suggestion was to go on a road trip to California in a classic car, something we've both wanted to do for a long time. The more we thought about it, the more we were determined to make it happen.
The Plan
1) Sell both of our E28s - we were planning on selling our 528e and 533i parts car anyway, but this would now be essential to fund the rest of the plan.
2) Find a classic BMW, preferably an E30, for sale on the West Coast. The car would have to be up to the task of driving from California all the way back to Ontario. We'd end up with a beautiful, rust-free E30 that would be in great shape mechanically. :)
3) Fly out to pick up the car.
4) Spend a week driving along the coast and all the way home. Enjoy super awesome, amazing road trip.
5) Drive the new car through the winter (since our E28 winter car would be sold), then sell it in the spring.
We sold the 533i parts car and vowed to never get a parts car again.
We even had a buyer lined up for "Professor Slow", our 528e. A car buddy who had always wanted to own it agreed to buy it as soon as he sold his current daily.
The Reality
1) Our buddy didn't have any luck selling his car, leaving us without a buyer for the 528e.
2) We weren't having any luck finding a car on the coast that would be a good candidate for our plan. :-?
3) We ended up putting our road trip plans on hold and getting a local project-grade E28 that was supposed to be a back-up plan in case we couldn't find anything else. And we also got another parts car against our better judgement.
4) Drove a couple of hours to check out the car in Hamilton, Ontario, got the car delivered, then spent our week off stripping the parts car and working on the new project car in our driveway. Romance isn't dead. ;D
5) It's winter now and we're still not done working on the car.
The Back-Up Plan
So what was this back-up plan car? It was a manual 1984 Euro E28 520i that Paul found for sale locally that seemed interesting. We figured, worst case, it might make a good car to drive through the winter since we were quickly running out of time to find something, so we went to check it out.
The seller had a huge stash of E28 parts in his basement that would all be included with the car. He'd been parting out E28s for years, keeping the best parts as he went. We were pretty much sold on the whole deal after just seeing the parts we'd be getting, knowing how rare some of them were and how much they were worth.
There were multiple door panels, clusters and tail lights, black and blue carpets, and tons of miscellaneous parts...
Euro bumpers...
Manual black leather sports seats...
Two dashboards (one of which is crack-free and worth more than a mint condition E30 dash), multiple consoles including one without cut-outs for switches, and tons of other parts not pictured here.
The 520i was stored in the seller's aircraft hangar (!!) workshop. We learned that the car was originally imported from Germany to New Brunswick. The seller picked it up from New Brunswick and brought it back to Ontario with plans of restoring it.
The interior was completely stripped. The seller had brought it to a shop to get the rust taken care of, but had to get them to stop work on it part way through as they were already way over budget, leaving the car far from being restored.
It came with brand new fenders, which we were going to need if we decided to take on this project.
There were lots of cool details, like this BBS spoiler (with matching valence included) and the wheels. :up:
It also came with lots of rust, like this sunroof panel that would need to be replaced immediately. :down:
The M20 engine was apparently swapped in at some point from an unknown source. The seller said he believed it was a Euro engine, but we still have no idea how long ago it was swapped, which car it came from, or why it was swapped in the first place. Actual mileage on the engine and body of the car =
. Oh well, who needs details like that? It was safe to say that it would need a valve adjustment and all new belts immediately.The car started up and drove out of the hangar without any issues (though it couldn't be driven very far given the shape the interior was in), so there was that at least.
Things didn't look great under the carpet in the trunk. :| Didn't get any pictures of it at the time, but just trust me.
There was black tape around the windshield gasket, along with some scary looking rust areas. We peeled back some of the tape to get a sense of what we'd be dealing with. Not horrifying, but not great either.
Same story in the back.
The car also came with a parts car, an E28 535i.
It looked like it still had some good parts that would come in handy.
Don't let the look on my face fool you - I was actually ecstatic at the idea of getting another parts car. ;)
We had to admit that the 528e was superior in almost every way to the 520i when we compared the two, especially after all the work we'd done to that car. There was so much potential in the 520i, though. I loved the paint colour, Saphirblau. No more automatic transmission and diving boards! It would be so much more fun to drive. I really liked the wheels it came with and all of the unique details. It would make the perfect winter car for us, it would be a fun project, and could we really say no to the amazing parts stash that it would come with?!
I had a pep talk with Paul to make sure he was prepared for the amount of work that would be involved, and offered to deal with all the rust issues myself since I know how much he hates rust. So this is pretty much all my fault.
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