E30 325i Rag-Top

BMW Motorsport works driver Alessandro ‘Alex’ Zanardi was involved in a serious road accident in his home country of Italy on Friday, 19 June 2020. He is currently in stable condition at a Siena hospital, but is in a medically-induced coma due to the severe head injuries he incurred. Since the accident, BMW has been in close contact with Alessandro’s family. We are shocked by this news and deeply concerned. Zanardi is a two-time CART champion and former Formula One driver. In 2001, he was involved in a racing accident that resulted in the loss of both his legs. Despite his handicap, he exhibited superhuman determination to recover, designing his own prosthetics and learning to walk again. From 2003 to 2009, Zanardi raced modified BMW race cars and successfully competed in the FIA European Touring Car Championship (FIA ETCC) and the FIA World Touring Car Championship (FIA WTCC) with BMW Motorsport. After a break of four years he returned to racing in 2014 as a BMW works driver and competed in the Blancpain Sprint Series in a BMW Z4 GT3 that was modified to suit his needs. He then competed in the gruelling 24 hours of Spa endurance race in 2015, sharing the cockpit with non-handicapped drivers for the first time. Zanardi’s story is one of fearless human spirit, inspiring us all to reach higher and go further. The thoughts of the global BMW family are with him, his wife and his son during this time.

Coombes Johnston in Hamilton had a very nice one they were selling on behalf of a customer. Was on display at the BMW festival. Owner was looking for around $35k I believe.

Yes, the China market was down year-on-year, around 9.5% by the end of the 2019 sales year. However, putting that into context it was still a total market of over 21 million vehicles, which is still over 4 million cars (the whole Japanese market) bigger than the next largest in that of the USA. All of the 28 EU markets combined together only got to just over 15 million units between them. Whilst negative growth is never great news, volumes have been holding steady for the start of 2020 and bounced back to close to 2019 levels very quickly after the initial covid lockdown. There probably is over-capacity in the manufacturing side, one thing China is very good at is building the infra-structure ahead of the demand - so building massive plants that are at low levels of utilisation to start with and then come to full capacity in the future. Which is contrary to most other manufacturers where new plants are only committed too once there is a clear "need" and the capacity added is smaller and utilised more fully from the get go. The vehicle is being bought predominantly as it is a status symbol or designer label if you will rather than because of it's nationality. In the same way that labels such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Chanel, Ralph Lauren are all manufactured in countries overseas from their national base. Many BMWs have been built outside of Germany for a long time, UK, South Africa and USofA being the most obvious and you can now add Mexico, Brazil, Austria and Holland to the list and that is before you include CKD plants in many markets. An additional factor for the Chinese market is that there are huge taxes and tariffs added to cars that are built overseas, which make them horrendously expensive, even compared to similar locally built models. Also, any local manufacturing has to be on the basis of a "joint venture" with a local Chinese company, so all the car plants are shared ownership in effect. I seem to remember that a car company had to have a joint venture manufacturing plant to sell any of their cars into the local market, but I am not sure if that is still the case.

Post needs to have photos as per forum rules please.

Yes, plumbing in that vacuum should give you a bit better performance as it will be advancing the ignition timing as the revs increase as is intended on these older "mechanical" type distributors. It won't be heaps of improvement, but possibly enough to notice when driving and not your imagination.

Great memory Glenn, I would be positive that is the case, that is why some of the identification numbers in the parts drawing are "greyed out", there were few iterations of L-Jet, the big metal damper was on the early version, then switched to the later plastic one. If you have the metal one, it is normally bolted to a bracket on that side of the engine bay, possibly off the oil dip-stick bracket? It is more likely to give an issue at high revs I would think as I believe this vacuum is used to advance the spark timing? More revs = more vacuum = more advance on the ignition IIRC. In terms of the idle problem, have you got the wax-stat cold start thing-ummy bobby under the throttle body? These are very temperamental at the best of times and often cause issues with the idle.

Bit of a thread dig, but as there is still no sign of an M4 Gran Coupe, the other part of this “news” might also be incorrect. You never know ?

Yeah that’s where the seller is coming from, I can understand the M3 tax on the scarce and NLA specific parts, but when people jack the price of the common E30 parts as “genuine M3 bonnet” “M3 wheel bolt”, etc it’s a bit on the nose.

I bought many more horsepowers for the car from the parts dept... I was in two minds about putting the M3 badges on a non-M3 as it really is a pet hate of mine. As this is 1) a race car with lots of genuine M3 parts, least of which engine and box plus 2) it’s a tribute to JRs car and that had the badges on, then I can sleep at night with my decision.

Not going to make the mistake of commenting on Global Politics on a car design thread, we all know how that ends up. My reference is purely to the amount of $$$$s involved in the Chinese car market, and how that is influencing the design criteria.

Designing a product for its key markets and customers would be good business sense to me. On the proviso it doesn’t completely turn off other customers. The purchasing power of the Chinese market, due to both its size (bigger than all the European markets combined) and its profitability is massive, hence the focus in a one world product strategy. It also has a knock-on effect into other Asia Pacific markets as well, there is a reason why NZs latest and greatest BMW dealership has signs in English and Chinese simplified.

@SNWMBL there’s a “genuine M3 one” for sale on S14.net at the moment. Which is a laugh as they are the same as all the pre-fl fuel tanks at 55l, the larger tank design was introduced with the facelift, nothing to do with the engine size.

Would probably depend on what the guy’s job is tbh. And primarily amongst that what division of the company he worked in , V / M / K / B or H, dealership or NSC or SF. There’s quite a lot of ground to cover.

Yeah, does look like it. However, it does seem a bit odd to adopt that policy AFTER someone has paid their bill ??

So, I get e-mails telling me to check my tax returns on line - which gives me a nett bill of $8.89 to pay. Set up direct debit and pay bill - grr, etc. Then get payment back from IRD a few days later for $8.89..? Bill has been cancelled. Not sure if happy or sad, but I think it’s a win. Lot of messing about for less than nine bucks.

This would definately trigger my pedant button, factory accessory is an oxymoron. However, like many technical terms, across many industries, things get mis-labelled and mis-quoted until they become common parlance. Anything that is added after the car is a "local fit" or "dealer fit" accessory, often with the word "Genuine" added in for good measure. Which if those lights were added in Palmy would be the case for these lights. These terms have particular relevance when cars are modified or tuned at the dealership - ie a BMW M Performance power & sound pack is added to a car, as this affects things like the emissisons and fuel consumption, etc. but this does not have to be recorded in the MVR / fuel saver information. If the same part were fitted at the factory it would affect the official information stored on the MVR. A technicality maybe, but a legal one. End of pendantry. Just out of mild curiosity are the lights actually BMW parts, or from an aftermarket supplier?

The key phrases associated with the new design language coming from Germany are "imposing" and "road presence" so I think they have met the brief there. A number of the vehicle shots I have seen look pretty good - mostly the M440i with the different M Performance version of the front grilles. However, there have also been some photos of other cars that have looked very ordinary in the particular colour / style combination.

Phew! For a second there I thought that was an S14 motor on that bike, was just about to write a strongly worded letter!!

Lower kms generally means less wear and tear, and some buyers would pay a premium for that. When the car is a bit older, the whole low kms part becomes less important versus proper servicing on the time basis not distance, and the condition of the car for me anyways. Some might still pay a little bit more for the lower km example, but as you say it’s a long way off the market price where it is. Low kms don’t make it worth anywhere near that much more. As for the photos, they look to be the traditionally poor Japanese Auction house base package. Would hope the dealer takes some better ones when it arrives here. Looks to be a nice example but needs to drop that price a ways.

Targets for the month smashed, long week-end ahead and under level 2 we can now travel out of region. Road trip in the big blue bus to see the rellies!! Bring it.

Long distance tank option or the normal underfloor tank? Both are the same as the prefacelift common or garden E30 fuel tanks I believe..?

https://www.trademe.co.nz/Members/Listings.aspx?member=2526756&cid=347

Just an explanation for you, to again show what it was that needed moderation. Its part of the right of reply, explanation, etc that you wanted. It has been suggested we lock this thread but I have left it open so that there is still the opportunity for a reply. I’m happy to close it now if you’ve finished?

They do put some of their stuff on TradeMe..?

Be interesting to see where it gets to, a new indicator of the 130i post-covid market.