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So I found what is now one of my favourite videos on the internet. It is of a BMW Hill-Climb event at the Chelsea Sugar Factory near Birkenhead on Auckland's North Shore, in 1992! The value of some of the cars hurtling up the hill is insane! Cheeky E28 M535, E30 M3, 2002 Turbo and what looks to be a 3.0CSI among numerous M-Tech E30s, E24s, old 2002s and E12s.

Hey can we close this thread down quick please - we don’t want the general public to know that these cars, well e34’s for that matter, are the next collectable modern bmw. And then become unobtainable for us mere mortals. Thanks! 😎😎😎

It's a dream if you share the car, as I do with wife. One button press to get back your exact settings.

My one.😉

Further to what @ssbmw said, two 540i LE's have sold for $48.5K and $50K respectively inside the last 24hrs. Always good to keep a weather eye on carsales.com.au Pic attached is the "unicorn" possibly the last 540i/6 produced #797/797 and the last M-Sport optioned car produced; 21xxx km as of 07/21 😮

Some E30 gold from those Guten Herren at BMW Classic...

Better yet put up a real camera. These days the cameras are very capable (image recognition) and cheap for its price. Probably about a decade ago I would setup my own server, camera, etc. I am a bit older and I have deemed this to be low priority. My wife has been bugging me about it for years, we live on a relatively quiet cul de sac too. Everyone knows everybody, however things are getting been not so good for past few years. 1 of our neighbors was burglarized.... during the 1st lockdown last year some weirdo went to our property and my son confronted him. Gladly one of our neighbors suspected something wasn't right and was able to take the photo of person and car. Anyway this is a sample clip of the recently released Nest Camera (battery) https://store.google.com/nz/product/nest_cam_battery?hl=en-GB The image quality is ok, not the best but it's ability to sift through what is important and noise is very good and useful. Local AI image processing is super fast. Putting this up for a few hours and I will take it down (please don't share the link). Just to convince a few of you that spending a few $ and probably just 15 mins to install it is sure worth it. I have procrastinated on this, but I think best do it now while in lockdown. You can also see how crappy the SMG on low speed [edit: link removed]

it all looks fixable! Though expect to fix a lot more than what the previous owner has neglected or butchered. Lightweight, a poor-man's CSL! A slicktop 316i coupe is the lightest e30, they have little sound deadening. In rude health and with good suspension, they're a quick car through the twisties and can hold their own with 325i's (and some much bigger cars too). Make no mistake, on a straight road with the chance to stretch it's legs, the torque and extra HP of the 325 will eat the 316i. Horses for courses! Air Filter: I doubt the cone/pod filter is going to give you any more HP, paper filter elements are cheap and the factory intake will be quieter and give colder air. Selling the pod might get you some dough for a rear muffler. Rubber: Essentially you'll find a 30+ year old e30 has probably been pretty well neglected, and you can expect to work your way through every rubber bush and mount in the car, once you've got it on the road. Engine and gearbox mounts will look okay, but that rubber has lost it's elasticity, and replacing them improves NVH. Same for rear subframe mounts, RATBs, diff bush. No need to go to Poly, the OE/OEM rubber solutions are proven, inexpensive, and reliable. Check your fuel hoses! easy to replace under the hood, you might as well replace the fuel filter while you're at it, it won't have been done in years, possibly decades. Be sure to use EFI high pressure rated hose. Lubricants: Time for gearbox oil and diff oil. I'm running Penrite Synthetic, don't mix them up (get the back oil into the middle and vice versa). One assumes you've already done the engine oil and filter with quality kit (I like the Mahle) Brakes: Slider pins - unless they're badly pitted - can be cleaned up in your battery drill with a scotch-brite pad and Brakekleen. I like the ATE silicone brake grease. Brake hoses are cheap, give the existing ones a good look over. ARB bushes and endlinks are cheap too. 316i has solid front rotors, you can get six cylinder calipers which allows you to upgrade to vented front discs, a little more meat. Two types of front calipers, both run the same pads. The racers prefer the ATE calipers which makes 'em more pricey (one can run brass bushings in place of rubber - though for street use not really a consideration); the Girlings are fine. You can take your time, recon a set of calipers (seals, bleed nipples, boots, sliders, paint) then install with new hoses, pads, rotors. Bear in mind the six cyl calipers/vented rotors are incompatible with the factory steel wheels if you ever wanted to go back there, once the pads are worn in. You could always extract some more cash to fund your brakes by selling those D-window steelies and stretched tyres and score some bottle caps for next to nothing, ride the coming fashion resurgence of bottle caps being uber-cool and authentic 80's e30. Stay cool: Give your cooling system attention, replace aging hoses, check thermostat bleed and flush it, replace with BMW Blue coolant and demineralised water. Check passenger side carpets for glycol, this is the age that those heater matrix are letting go. HTH

So to add to this story a little, half an hour ago - 11:30pm I went to get the mail and put the M5 away (long enough driveway and I'm lazy). I got to the top of the drive and here is a random red sh1tbox o' doom parked in the shadows with some young guy, hoody covering his face, trying to look like there is nothing out of the ordinary. To put it in perspective I live down a small cul de sac, no one parks on the street because all the houses have long driveways and off street parking. So it's pretty obvious when a random car is parking behind a giant hedge row that something is off. Ignoring Level 4 stay at home for a minute I decided to head out and do a lap around the block and come back, sure enough on my return here is a second car parked up next to the red POS. So I stop to find out WTF they are doing, the illegally tinted car just ignores me, so I do the one thing that people who are trying to hide their activity hate, I stood on the horn until lights from surrounding houses started to turn on. Immediately someone dives out of the POS, and from a distance tries to convince me that he lives here. Sure...... you may live somewhere but it's not outside my neighbors house at 11:30pm on a Friday night. I give him a some basic riot act verbals and say I've called the cops - what a shock Mr "I live here" guns it followed by his what I can only describe as a customer coming to collect his score out of the street. I head home, decide that I'll do the right thing and see exactly how I can report this - the obvious way is via the you have been a naughty boy / girl Covid site run by the cops. Or I could call 105 and sit on the line for an hour - then get hung up on. Or I can just wait till the morning and call the local plod station, I decided I'll sleep on it and call the plod in the morning, but then I note that all the local station direct dial numbers are now gone from the Police website. So I can't deal directly with the community constable even if I wanted, and I don't fancy calling 105 and waiting forever. I feel bad for the cops, on one hand they got a raw deal on recruitment thanks to the latest govt, so they are pretty light on the ground and arguably have better things to do than deal with some kids being a nuisance - especially when they are sooo busy patrolling Warehouse carparks and pulling me over for doing shopping with my daughter. (*new comers read the start of this post) I feel a bit let down that the basic ability for someone to report non life threatening potential crime (regardless of covid breaches) seems to be reduced to filling out a form on a website that will be dealt with months after the event if at all. I live in a quiet area, like most people on this forum I value the safety of my family and friends - which includes my neighbors. So when a strange car is seen parked up multiple times in a single week in our little dead end street, with other cars coming and going - during lockdown - alarm bells on some level do go off and I would like something done. And I can't help feeling that I would have more luck attracting the attention of the local cops if I was driving the farm hack with no rego and wof, then trying to get them to deal with BS where some pot head is using our street as his new collection spot.

Hey Team getting along quite nicely with the wagon. Managed to strip the motor and do a self leveling suspension (sls) delete. Hoping to start stripping the 4.6is X5 over the weekend too.

Just to clarify for the others reading, the 335i/d had the 4 piston Brembo fronts regardless (Brembo pad shape 1609), but sliding single piston Bosch / ATE calipers in the rear if just 337 optioned, and the 2 piston Brembo rear caliper if optioned with 2NH. Might as well delve quickly into it, but up front the 337 "greys" ran a 340x30 blank disc, which then went to a 370x30 blank disc for 2NA and the M Performance retrofit was a 370x30 with a dimpled and slotted disc. Out back the 337 disc was 330x20 blank, 2NA was 345x24 blank, and M Performance retrofit was 345x24 dimpled and slotted. Given the number of variables I would say that some coding was involved WRT brake bias when retrofitting.

M Sport Plus pack (on UK cars) included big brakes / HK / High beam assist and those double spoke 19’s. Shadow edition same thing but with black grilles, smoked taillights and nice carbon fibre interior trim. That car is almost a twin of mine (only missing adaptive suspension)

Hard without a workshop man...eish🙄🙄🤯🤯 Hammers and some wood to panel and shape..🤓..annyway..

The blue painted callipers are the M Sport brake option 2NH, unless this was added as an option the brakes would be the standard single piston sliding affair that is only coated not painted. Iirc NZ New F30/31 M Sports included the 2NH brakes, however most other markets the brakes had to be added on top of the M Sport package.

Family leisurely standing roadside!

Can you call me 0274083393 Thanks

That's the best thing I'll see today

Great spec on this F31 335d xenons / HK audio / even has painted brakes (why do 335d's so often have the unfinished calipers?)

Hi mate, well both of his cars were on that list on the previous page which depicts the 540is 6 speeds delivered to NZ. His red one is the first one on the list - different plate to what you mention. Has around 255,000 kms on the clock. Around 2000, you saw these 540is's everywhere. They are obviously not M cars, but do deserve modern classic car status. Accordingly, alot have been parked away in garages and come out sparingly. There was an avus blau example that had the plate BLU M5 that i saw and heard (had an extremely loud exhaust) in Auckland around that time. Clocked real high k's quickly. Now parked away. The Australian delivery equivalent - the 540iLe (70 were delivered) is a very special car too - and very sought afer in Australia. Most of them did not have the full body kit.

@m325i my partner can't stand driving my car so not a problem for me 😂

In my opinion, the e34 looks great with body kit and rear- boot spoiler, and the throwing stars suit them so well - stunning cars! Beautiful car John!