Some of you may have noticed that my love to old American cars is followed closely by one for older BMWs. My dad drove them all the time as we are running our business in Dingolfing, right across the street from the BMW plant, and most of our customers were and are somehow depending on the wellbeing of that company. So we were loyal BMW customers and I grew up with the smells and sounds . I have had quite a few myself, but my favourite BMW engine always was the M30 6 cylinder in all flavors. I´ve had it in an E3, an E12, an E24,some E28s, a few E32s and most of all, in about 15 e34s. The M30 six was a mid 60s design developed from the M10 4 banger. It is basically a M10 with 2 extra cylinders added, ranging from 2.5-3.5 liter displacements. The latest version of that engine family is the S38B38, a 3.8 liter 24valve inline six with two cams, mechanical valve timing, six throttle bodies and a redline suggesting to shift at about 7500 rpm that came in the late e34 M5 rated at 340 hp. I couldn´t afford one of those when they were dirt cheap 20 years ago, and today it´s hard to find a good solid car for reasonable money. I sold off some cars, parts and projects to bring the car budget up a bit and started roadtripping to look at advertised cars... I´ve been looking at so many of them that were advertised as original paint, rust free, never hit, that were the exact opposite of what the ad said. But I finally found the car for me last Sunday. The seller is a heck of a nice guy and a car mainiac to boot. Of course I had my car buddies with me to check it out, we had a great time and after a very short haggle the deal was done. I haven´t brought the car home yet, there´s still too much salt on the roads to drive it, but I hope to get it home within the next couple of weeks. A lady bought the M5 new in 1994, she sold it to the seller´s father in law in 2010 who only drove it occasionally, like 5000 miles in 10 years, and the last 7 years it has been sitting in Michael´s garage until he decided to get rid of it. He is a HotRodder and can´t drive cars like they came from the factory, but he couldn´t bring himself to modify this untouvched M5. The Body and interior are very nice,never repainted or hit, the car has 156000 original kms on the clock, and other than a good wash it " only" needs to bee serviced and a set of new tires and ruber hoses. It purrs like a kitten. I can´t wait to get my hands dirty and get this old beamer back on the road , when I blink I can already see me going sideways through a corner or two, hahahaha . I think that´s what they were made for....
I’m sorry I did not understand a word you said. But I’m old and American. That should explain a lot. But if it makes you happy I’m all for it! After all it is still car related. I wish you happy times and good luck!!!
Hahaha, thanks for the good wishes @SS327 ! I didn´t expect anyone to share my excitement, as that thing is just too far OT for here. @mods : please feel free to delete this if you think it doesn´t fit or is offensive. To me, this is the last German sleeper looking car that was based of off 60s technology. It is lacking any computerized driving or traction controls at all, only thing that helps is a limited slip differential.
They shouldn’t delete this. That car is important to you. It means something to you. Just like our old junk means something to us. It helps us relive our youth, or think of better times. Sometimes it just helps us make friends or be closer to our family. What ever the reason, sometimes they are just relaxing after a hard day. Keep after it!
Fine cars indeed. Not my cup of tea but i made so far best bang for the buck with e46 330d automatic. Bought it dirt cheap with broke transmission. Repaired it, tidy up body, new "tüv" inspection etc and i traded it to c1500 454 short bed. Also part of the deal what i got is one 206 gti peugeot and pile of cash. Sold the chevy for good money and give the Peugeot to my good friend. I was happy.
Congrats. M5s are amazing cars! I’m not sure how the previous owner was able to avoid driving it. M5s scream drive me, and not like a little old lady. They want to be driven like you’re qualifying on the ring. The reason most Americans don’t understand how truly amazing BMWs are is because the cars are tethered to the dealerships and that spoils the experience. I got to own and play with Porsches and BMWs when I was stationed there and while I loved the 914-6, for pure driving pleasure you couldn’t beat the BMWs. I have an older X3 that is still fun to drive, but I cringe every time I need to work on something that requires dealer support.
Fixing up an old beamer around here is probably a lot like keeping lets say a 90s Ford Explorer going in the US. Used parts are pretty easy to come by and if you can´t get it used, the aftermarket has something. That´s also a reason I´m sticking to old ones with simple mechanicals, I can´t afford a dealer to work on my cars.
The brother of a former friend (former as in he has since p***ed away) owned and raced one of the original M1 Procars (BASF) locally several years ago (Mosport, Ontario Canada). Surprisingly, there were actually two M1 Procars racing regularly at Mosport. My understanding is when he got rid of the M1, he traded it for one of the "Skittle" Jaguar XJ220S cars (when he got the Jag it was painted Reventon grey and last I saw a pic, it was being returned to its original blue color). As an aside, his "daily" is a McClaren Mercedes SLR. This moment of useless information has been brought to you for reasons even I don't fully understand Edit: I just remembered that his SLR is the 722 edition.
https://www.bmw-m.com/de/topics/magazine-article-pool/das-bmw-m1-procar.html Thanks for the reminder, it always amazes me what these guys did to those old inline sixes. Reading that article I learned that there was also a turbocharged version that made between 850 and 1000 hp from the 3.5 liter six.
What a great find. These are one of those cars that are always thrashed half to death and still super expensive. I used to run a black E30 318iS, which drove really nicely, but it got really ****ing annoying being pulled over by the cops in Stuttgart every five minutes. One time I was stopped twice inside of 500m. I sold that the very day before they started to be seen as collectible.
Hahaha, didn´t you know that it´s illegal to drive a BMW in Stuttgart??? You can walk, drive a Porsche or a Mercedes in Stuttgart, but a BMW? No wonder they pulled you over all the time, Yeah, most of the ones that I looked at were either ridden to death, worn out , crashed and badly repainted ex-tuner cars and still expensive, or low milage collector cars , that were almost to nice to drive ( and way out of my budget).This one barely fit in, still a lot of money to me, but the foundation is nice and solid, it just needs a little maintainance. One rear shock is leaking, brake hoses are the first ones, there´s a drop of DOT 4 on the clutch slave cylinder... things like that.
I used to fly through Stuttgart in both my car and the Huey. It’s kind of embarr***ing to be flying along the autobahn and be p***ed by the cars beneath you. The 914-6 was by far the most fun as it was as close to being a true race car being driven on the street as you could get in Stuttgart in the early 80s. Your M5 would have been after my time there. But a friend had one here in the states and it was a great ride to experience.
Congrats, those are hard to find like this here in Austria too and for the same reasons already mentioned above (thrashed to death by people who did not maintain them etc.). Again, people nevertheless want stupid money for them. I think the only "find" BMW from this era is the E38, my landlord got a swb one with the V12... and a second for spares lol. Obviously aimed at a different buyer than the M5 but still intersting and capable of cruising at 220 Km/H all day.
The 7series e38 certainly is a great cruising car, during the pandemic I had a winter beater 728i e38 I bought for 1600€ in late 2019 and sold for 3600€ in 2022. I had to learn later on that a rust free door is going for 1k€ nowadays and a new tank is 1,5k € over the counter at the dealership. I should have parted mine out, hahaha. The parts prices and availability are both reasons I was searching for a good quality car. These high revving engines tend to wear out their rod bearings when the were driven hard or collected lots of miles on a race track. That wouldn´t be a problem if they ´d be available . Rod bearings are only available in undersizes ( at least 600€ for a set), but the cranks are rarely worn, so no one is eager to have a crank ground down to an undersize bearing... I´m sure somebody will soon be reproducing rod bearings, there is money to be made...and I hope I won´t ever need them
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