E30 325i Rag-Top

Not strictly today, but took the vert to the cars & caffeine meet at Mount Smart, what an absolute cluster f**k on my part!! Was supposed to be going with the wife, but she wasn’t feeling well so bailed on Sunday morning. It was early start (for me) and roads were damp but looked like sun was coming out so I thought - yup go for it. Need to use the car more. Drive off, top down (as you must in a vert) realise five minutes up the road that I’ve forgotten to wear a hat (as you must in a vert). Now driving towards ominous rain cloud… keep positive thoughts… starts raining “only a few spots”.. more rain “it’ll stop soon”.. now really raining… bugger, stop to put hood up. Get to Greenlane Maccas for E30 pre-meet up, already a few E30s and lots of other cool cars there. Grab drive through beekkie and a coffee, start to feel human. Lots more E30s arrive, lots of new faces and a few familiar ones. Good chats, and smiles all round. Time to go to Mt Smart for main meeting, wagons roll, E30s driving off… mine won’t start. Realise I left my lights on while parked up, bugger. Find Good Samaritan with jump leads amongst group of old Skool American muscle group, and get a jump off the last remaining E30! Starts first pop with the leads, phew. Drive off realising I don’t know exactly where I’m going and no one to follow - hoping to see the lights of the stadium, but no… By watching the car behind and some last ditch lane changes manage to get there, but no chance to park with other E30s. Start to wander around looking a lots of cool cars and start to feel sub-optimal. Find a seat in cafe but still not coming right.. Decide to head off home before things get worse, but put hood down again, as sun is shining brightly. Do the crawl of shame through lots of people to get out and head home… a bit more rain.. but couldn’t be arsed to stop and put hood up. Why do I own a classic car again.. it’s fun they say… yeah right! And even better I now have the cold from the wife (nothing to do with getting wet in the rain, honest.).

Took the mighty 116d for its warrant… …and it passed with flying colours not even an advisory! Finally, some good news with a vehicle in our household fleet, albeit the wife’s daily.. but I’ll take that for now.

I know what you mean about the two-tone, it looks good on some cars. I had a two-tone Hillman Avenger GT in my youth... not quite the same though. Yes, the X7 is a big unit, but being in and around them everyday, both at work and in East Auckland, you kind of get used to them. There is an LCI (facelift in old money) coming soon for the X7 as well, gets a similar front end treatment as the new i7..

That's not the most flattering angle / colour tbh. Base spec "pure excellence" is interesting... Looks a lot better in M-Sport trim to me.. Or you can go the full Rolls-Royce look with two-tone paint if you want..

Roughly NZ$146k by my quick calculations, could probably by an M2 and an M140 for that and get the best of both worlds. But yeah, you wouldn’t have a very rare and different machine.

Starting at $105k (which is more than it’s worth imho) but with a reserve… So surprised this never sold first time round with the “bought it off my mate who runs Alpina Germany and first registered in NZ” story 🤦🏻

Wow, it went for over $3k in the end… might be that much in it as parts (M20B25 & manual conversion, new hood, etc) but hopefully a brave buyer is going to bring her back to life.

I’ve been away from Palmy for a while, and not sure who to use for servicing something that modern, other than Manawatu BMW. I used to use Laurie at Kelvin Grove Motors to do the warrants on all my cars when I was there.

What model Bimmer is it? Most independents can look after the older stuff but the more modern cars are a bit more specialist.

How bad is the E30 ‘vert? Can you pop round and have a look underneath for me.. 😘

Damn, those wheels look even better than I thought. Whole package has gone to another level, and it was up there to start with!!

Can’t legislate for stupidity unfortunately. In the same way that some posters have dreamed up their own extensive list of requirements and expectations.GTFO.

Yes, RightCar uses the official manufacturers information. It probably won’t have the F31 320d on there as only the xDrive version was sold new in NZ. Worth noting the figures used for the calculations are WLTP 3P figures, not the NEDC which is probably what you will usually see quoted for a 2014 model. As it’s a Jap import the responsibility for the information being provided lies with the importer of the vehicle and should have been provided to NZTA. If you get real stuck let me know and I’ll see if I can help you out.

Ain’t that the truth! Some real life wisdom right there kids. Maybe they should add some sort of disclaimer on the web-site like “ this is not a secure storage service for your really important car photos”?

I would have said the top one (the seat base) is houndstooth, not the bottom one?

Are there any tracking and recovery services in NZ..? Have seen them in operation in UK. When they have confirmation from you that car is stolen they go and find it and get it back - working with the police. Not a cheap service - install costs plus subscription fees, but if your car is that valuable to you.. maybe? Probably not enough demand in NZ and too much rural area to cover. Connected Drive on later models has proved useful in finding some missing vehicles.

Got an example? Just looked through your thread and all the images seem to be ok..

The guy seems to have a fair collection of cars in various states of disrepair (#goals), he’s also selling an old Merc, newish Merc and a Porsche 928. Couple have asked about the shark nose but he’s keeping that one.

Some nice parts, but I’d have to say that’s rooted. Cars really don’t like being parked on grass, I think it’s the dew or moisture that makes them rot out. Shame to see a fellow vert like that, but could be more difficult to restore with the convertible only parts that might be required - sills, guards, etc.

Understand your upset about your loss but, that’s a big accusation. There’s plenty of non-BMW people that offer cheap keys, didn’t think it could be one of them? No-one in the NZ BMW network can “create” a key, they are all ordered from Munich using the VIN number. All key new requests are logged through the parts system so it is easy to see if a new key has been ordered for a car should this happen. Would be pretty dumb to lose your job stealing an E46 M3 when there are thousands of more valuable BMWs out there.

Just think, there are people in the world that get paid to work on and test drive these beauties!

The houndstooth interior I can understand - sports seats, rears, plus all door cars matching is a good find. A decent clean and they probs would have gone for more. The 320i auto, seems a bit optimistic!

IIRC that one had an extensive list of mods, not just the S54 conversion in it, which contributed to the high selling price. Many other S14 powered M3s have sold for well over that price on BaT as well. Granted an S54 is about the only engine swap I would possibly contemplate, and it is often hard to reconcile the fact you can sell an S14 and buy something with lots more hp for much less money. The fact is that the yellow one will never really be able to come back to the condition of being an “original” “collectors” car and is more suited to a restomod. Or race car..

Are the commercial RUCs being reduced as well? People moan about RUC on a car, but HT charges on truck AND trailer are enormous. I was involved in a court case where the RUC category was in question and the difference in charges was over $1 million for a year. Not the total RUC, just the difference from one class of HT to another.