M3AN

What's up with the watermark on the pci Kelvin? Looks like you paid the service station for a staged pic. ?

And the Z8 wasn't an ///M car and it used the S62. My point being that an S designated motor has not been a satisfactory identifier of ///M cars since 1996. And I'd take a 1M over any shitty S52 any day, I wouldn't care what the engine designation was.

Unfortunately the S designation for engines isn't a reliable marker. Don't forget the S52, that's when BMW M first faltered. The 1M is a "proper" M by any reasonable standard and I'm not sure they're dropping in price, most of the public trades in 2018 have been well over NZ$80k.

I was talking about "fun" and not "value" in my post and I'm confident a 1M would be way more "fun" than a modern M3 (M4), it's much, much lighter and has a far more practical power to weight ratio. It's a little tall (high) but nothing to be too concerned about, if you could drop it an inch or more it would have a lower CoG than an Fxx M4. As for value, mark my words, M3's and M4's from the E9x era on will dump value the same as AMG's do, they have nothing that sets them sufficiently apart from any other marque to hold value and they're common as grass. I suspect this 1M is worth what's being asked ($40k less than a CSL) and they probably won't bottom out in value (see recent post about Exx M3 for <$25k). I see it as being the natural successor to E30 Sport Evo -> E36 M3 GT2 -> E46 M3 CSL -> E87 1M -> ??? One sold a few weeks ago for US$72,500 (https://www.bmwblog.com/2018/08/07/this-low-miles-bmw-1m-sold-for-72500/) Future ///M money exists in the M2 only I'm afraid, certainly not the M3 or M4, they'll be worth rocks in a few years, mark my words.

I think it's lovely, was fawning over it the other day. I suspect it'll be a bucket-load more fun than any M3 you could get for the same money.

Now what fun would it be speculating a benign outcome!

These things are apparently impossible to crash unless you're stupid. People should have to pass an advanced driving test to purchase any car with more than 200bhp.

Can you get it to make the noise over judder bars?

That's some sexy shiz!

Norway doesn't have the same social or cultural structure as New Zealand and as a result doesn't have to solve the same types of problems. It's a seemingly comfortable but ultimately unreliable comparison. If you've spent any time there that's plain to see. For example their poor and/or uneducated people don't beat up their own families like ours do.

Okay, accepted. You are not allowed to swap out iconic BMW wheels for anything vanilla!

Depends on the wheels though right? I'm pretty confident you can add value with the correct aftermarket wheels. In fact, because some BMW wheels look terrible it's actually occasionally mandatory to swap them out. But yes, putting on cheap, soft reps is a no-no unless the originals are also included.

If your lawyer recommends entertaining this offer just make sure that your warranty recourse is 6 new BMW branded injectors installed at the dealer of your choice at no cost to you (or your warranty company), invoiced straight to the dealer that sold you the car. Make the trigger for that warranty claim a single stored code from any single injector in the first 12 months. If the Au injectors are the new type and BMW branded they may be just fine for many years to come. But the hassle! What does 6 new injectors cost???

Sweet car and probably one of the few ACS body kits that I think looks good. The rust on the wiper arm isn't a good indicator of what the vehicle might look like underneath. I'd replace that whole arm if I were selling the car for this amount. If I were a buyer and saw that I'd expect the car up on a hoist and the wheel well liners removed for a proper look. I wonder if BMW did that when they gave it a clean bill?

Mishimoto now offer radiators in NZ. @BatMansWilly knows where/how...

I'm not sure whether that's a stupid idea or not. Cool sure but I can see so much wrong with it also. Crash bad and you wreck a car and a house! Hope he has sympathetic neighbours and councillors for life, it's hardly a "residential activity". How did he get resource consent? Perhaps it's just a "driveway"? And of course, if it can be seen from the street (doesn't look so) then the cops could be all over him as well.

That's a funny towbar!

^ yummy, and just in time for warm summer days!

No sunroof and aluminium doors... ?

No offence taken and fair cop also. ? I'd love to see this one in Ak to fawn over, I really do think it's a mint and rare example example. Might be the best optioned NZ new? Sunroof and SMG don't work for me but that's subjective. 30k though? Not yet.

Nice. Backstory on SMG sounds interesting if you care to indulge us. And welcome! Everybody except me is pretty nice here so stick around.

E92 (and in fact anything after the E46) won't have a value bounce-back IMO, they don't have the "soul" to justify it and they're simply not scarce enough. The E46 M3 will (with the exception of time capsule examples of other models) be the last to find itself with appreciating value long-term. And to be honest, I don't see the E46 having a significant uptick (biggest uptick for the E30, less for the E36 and even less for the E46, nothing beyond that). This is already playing out - E30 M3 = 30k more than 10 years ago, E36 M3 = 7k more than 10 years ago, E46 M3 still down on 10 years ago (naturally) but a few are bouncing back up from ~25k to ~28k. I could be wrong but I don't see anything in the later models that would generate enough next-gen interest for value increase - all they have to offer is more HP and all manufacturers offer than now. The driving dynamics that positioned earlier M3's out-of-category will never be repeated by M. You might be better off with a Lexus LFA now than a BMW M3/4. Unfortunately. An E9x M3 at 20k will be a monster but will cost a silly amount to maintain and there will be 100 other monsters at the same price point. The same simply can't be said for earlier iterations.

Yeah, there's a thread here where I suggested it was a great buy for 20k and still a good buy at 22k. But surely 30k is taking the piss. Nevertheless, I won't complain if it sells for that, I think mine is at least as valuable as that one.

30k ?

Yep, ask @M3_Power. If he doesn't have one he'll probably know where you can get one.