E30 325i Rag-Top

The windscreen could be from where the bonnet has come up from the clamps possibly? But yes a big hit for sure, and will need some extensive time on the chassis jig to get that all lined up again. shame, as it looks like it was in very good condition after it's restoration. Fingers crossed whoever wins the auction puts it back on the road and doesn't part it out for spares.

Thread has been tidied up by myself. Lets keep the comments reasonable please.

No so sure about that. When you are listing the car as "totally original and immaculate" and "collectors car" then surely that is what it should be. Putting black grilles and cheap trademe carbon splitters onto a CSL and then calling it "totally original" is a bit of a whopper if you ask me. And to be honest, detract totally from the car. Easily corrected though you would hope!

A couple of quick photos, the car in it's current state of dismantlement, amazing how quick it is to pull an E30 to bits, especially one that has most of the interior missing already! And the first parts have started to arrive. M3 Bumper and front guard mounts, and the guides that slide into them. Running with a fibreglass M3 front and guards last season it became obvious to me that there needed to be a bit of support in this area, as it is very flexbile without it! Rather than try and design and build my own solution, I went down the OE route and will work out how to mount the guide on the new glass bumper - should be much easier. Apart from that, so far it has been starting to get the car ready for paint, tidying bits up and scraping the underseal sh*t off the front to try and get a bit more weight out the front and the balance back towards the rear. won't make a huge difference, but every little helps!

That's interesting Andy, did you put it into the E30 as you felt it has better performance, or because you prefer the E30 style / shape, etc?

Car is running an S14B20 with the Getrag 265/5 dog-leg box. So those parts are pretty authentic. I would like to tune the engine, but probably not enough money in the budget at this point. will post up some pictures soon as things are starting to move along.

Ah, forgot about this!! Will pm you again.

Been debating it for a while, and a couple of things swayed me in the end. First the better fit and finish I will get from the original panel over a fibreglass copy. And second because they are steel they will be a bit more "resilient" to damage than glass ones, and you can panel beat steel if/when needed!!

At this current point the plans for this winter are mostly panel and paint, plus a few other odd jobs. List includes.. - replace rear guards with genuine E30 M3 guards (on order) - full M3 fibreglass kit for other panels, including the C Pillar extension over the rear window. -5-stud hub conversion. Got a compact rear, just trying to sort out the fronts. -overall paint an panel work to tidy her up and paint the black base colour ready for the gold "JTS" decals. -any other small jobs that I come across on the way. - carbon air intake for the engine & piggy-back ECU with tune if there is enough money left in the kitty.

So the E30 race car is in the garage after a long, hard season for some TLC and a bit of a refresh. I have now given in to the reality that I am never going to be in a position to afford to buy an E30 M3 chassis, let alone a complete car, to build into my race car and so I am going to modify my existing car into an M3 tribute to be as close as possible to an actual car. More specifically it will be a tribute (not a replica so I can put my own twist on things - Team JTS) to this gorgeous piece of machinery..

Yup, new generation 3-Series is just around the corner which will see a drop in the price of used F30s.

A bit of a long shot, but you never know what some people have sitting in their sheds in NZ.. Has anyone got a set of the rear bumper mounts and guides that bolt onto the bumper for an E30 M3? i am looking for a set and can't find any. condition is not important as long as they still fit and hold the bumper, would consider broken, repaired, etc.

Heaps, just google it. If it's not NZ sales specific it will be available in many places on the net.

Looks ridiculous without a drop to get it closer to the rubber bands, arch gap looks mah---ooosvie!

Post really should contain a picture of the engine / gearbox that is for sale, as per forum rules, please. Thank you!

I don't think it was a dealer car, Team McMillan changed names a while back and don't use the TMBMWx plates any more. Looking at all the sh*t left in the car it was someone's daily driver / home.

57 Pre-LCI, and 54 LCI. Still looking for the import numbers.

Mirror dimming sensors are in the front and back of the mirror unit itself, the sensor for the auto-wipers is in the blacked out part of the windscreen behind the mirror, as would be the camera for active cruise etc. So it looks very much like it is an after-market add-on unit, like you say probably a japanese Toll reader system. Take it off and see if anything stops working...

Correct, Electric vehicles have a temporary exemption from RUC. As soon as the tax $$$ from petrol starts to drop that exemption will stop.

Burnt a lot of 98 fuel driving around Hawke's Bay following around lots of other BMWs that are in the Targa HB. Also spotted two nice E30 M3s in the car parks, one Henna Red with fishnet recaros and one Alpine White with ACS wheels. it was a good day!!

Just out of curiosty, I double checked the number of NZ new F10 M5s, and in total there were 111 of them over the whole life cycle. So I would be very surprised if there were more imports here than that number. In coming years there will be a few more imports come through I would think, but not yet. Getting the info for the used stuff is a lot harder, as people can register anything as an "M5" when it comes in as a used import, so you have to sort the wheat from the chaff and cut out all the "520i M5" and "M5" with "Engine Size:2,000cc"!

I have a set coming out of my race car in the near future, good bearings and rotors if that's of interest.

From that chassis number and full VIN you can see the model code for the car is BG12 which was a German built car, not a SA model. As far as i know none of the SA build of E36 was sold new in the UK, and the ZA factory only looks to have built 4-Door saloon versions (LIM) of the E36, no coupes. Option code is the differently programmed ECU, though no idea what it does!

I'm not 100% sure, but I think the one in the photos might have been modified to take the power? 15" wide slicks on the back of the 323i would help keep the arse under control.

It's fine if you want to put a newer generation into some of the lighter old chassis, but you really need to pay serious attention to the brakes and handling. E21 323i were quite notorious for spearing off roundabouts with the standard engine in them, let alone putting a ligher more powerful and torquier donk under the bonnet. Not sure how much power the E21 chassis can handle before it starts behaving badly on you.