E30 325i Rag-Top

Interesting way to try and sell a car! He clearly has a high opinion of his car, whether that is true you can only find out by going to look at it.

You keeping the JB4 unit then..?

You would be amazed at the standard factory spec for 7 Series, tiny steel wheels and cloth seats with bugger all toys and tech. I'd guess that it's for the countries like India and Africa that sell 7s and all the buyers want is the size and the badge. The New Zealand "standard" spec is usually much higher than the factory - the current 7 Series list of additions is nearly two pages long.

Now there is a money pit if ever I saw one. Such a shame as it would be a great car for an enthusiast to keep original, but if the trans has gone then thats megas-$$$, plus changing the god-awful wheels, let alone all the other bits and pieces that are most likely to need doing.

Thanks, time to count the pennies...

I've got all the bits if you want them, glass, regulators, handles, etc...

What centre bore are the RGs and do you know what they weigh roughly?

Car had spent a lot of time at Hampton Downs, and test drives, so it was well used. Traction control still works with worn tyres, even when wet..? Targa cars still need a WoF and rego to compete, so would require full engineers report and approved repair process.

The main issue is the damge underneath the car, to the sub-frame and suspension in the front. As Brent correctly said, the back end went out and the nose grazed the concrete dividing wall between the carriageways, but when the wheel hit the kerb it launched the car up onto the top of the wall so it slid along the top of the wall with the front wheels either side. I'll see if I can find the photos of the damage before they stripped it down.

Just enjoying a good game of "hotter colder" with all the guesses.

Close, but not quite. And you missed quite a bit of the damage from your list. Wholesale on parts alone is $35k and I doub't you'd find any second hand as they are mostly M2 specific. You would have to keep it for a while for people to forget about it being damaged and re-reged, although that shouldn't really matter if the repair is done properly.

That's a pretty old article, the figure of 75% manual quoted are from October 2013. I would wager that figure has changed significantly in the three years since. When I was back in the Uk last year all the new-ish cars I drove were autos or DCTs

Colour? interior? package? options? condition? FSH?? How long is a piece of string? And i'm pretty sure the 25i is an over-boosted 2.0ltr 4-cylinder, not a 3.0l six cylinder.

As you probably know the airbags, etc. are all tiggered by accellerometers, or "g sensors" which if you have a big frontal will set off the bags. In this case it was more a bounce off and skid along the top of something type of impact that didn't have the big decelleration, hence the bags didn't go off. It was certainly a strange one, and not where you would expect to get an impact, but the damage underneath from the skidding along the top was definately structural! I wonder what it went for in the end, was over what I was prepared to pay, so someone out there is brave...

Totally different car to the one in the thread you have posted. TradeMe advert clearly states its a Bird's conversion. Built 1987, one of 4 sold RHD NZ new in 1988, the drive of 4 M3's racing in convoy across Europe from the factory to "Birds"(UK) factory-authorised RHD-conversion is still a legend at Giltraps. Rarer than LHD there are less than a dozen correctly converted authorised RHD globally. Looking at his Buy Now price I think the seller has got his Evo1 confused with an EvoIII

Car has just over 5,000kms on it. The 14kms was taken from the last warrant, when it was registered. Like all cars that are written off, it's due to the amount of damage and the cost to repair. As you would expect Manheim have tidied up the car and photographed it very carefully to give the impression it is a car worth buying. Anyone who is seriously interested in buying it would be sensible enough to check the car out rather than look at the photos and realise what is required in terms of the repairs to get it back on the road. Not sure about the parting out, most of the valuable parts are M2 specific and as for putting them in something else... Will be interesting to see how much it goes for.

I'm surprised it's even as high as 3% in the USA.. would have put it nearer 0.0001% from my exxperience of US cars and drivers. Current market stats show just over 13.3% new registrations YTD have been manual in the passenger cars / SUVs / utes / light commercial segment.

Yes, a real shame he has passed away, a real true engineering genius, responsible for so many great things during his lifetime.

Do they come with the centre caps?

They did try to get a grid start, but Grosjean crashing on the formation lap probably put paid to that! Probably wouldn't have got much further than the third corner before a pile up in those conditions. The conditions, safety cars, red flags all helped to mix up the running order and create more overtaking and excitement. hamilton was in control for the whole race though, shame Verstappen pitted after getting in front of Rosberg and couldn't quite get back there.

Yeah, they look the same, and have got the 509 stamped into them. I can't be arsed to look up the part number tbh. A nice looking wheel, but no factory std. E30 M3 16" wheel unfortunately. I can't see the offset stamped on these, do they "work" on an E30 M3? Shame they are only 7" wide, would like to go wider especially on the rear, but if they are cheap enough I could be interested.

Yeah, photos have been changed. Those aren't the rims that were on that listing at lunch time. The new ones definitely aren't E30 M3 rims.

Thanks for the heads-up hadn't seen those. should go for quite a bit more than the 15s, if they are the real deal (which it looks like they are if the photo is correct).

Hard to put a price on them, but if they are straight and true I would put them in the $800-$1,000 range. More if you have the centres. not much of a market for them in NZ and not an easy part to ship internationally.

The auto in the E46 is a long way from the E38 you test drove, but yes you still need to drive one. Pretty sure later E46, if not all, had "steptronic" shifting through gears if you want to pretend you are driving a manual when you want a bit of fun, not the quickest changes but at least you can choose the shift point. Try a normal E46 auto, a coupe would be closest, to see how you feel about the drive in that if you can't find an E46 vert near you. If I were being honest any convertible is more a Sunday cruiser rather than a sports car, even an M3 convertible. Due to the extra weight from stiffening the body and the blunted driving dynamics from the loss of rigidity they aren't as sharp and focussed in the handling / performance stakes. As such I would say that a GOOD auto is more suited to a convertible, plus there will be more choice to find a good one and better chance of selling when you want to move it on.