leichtbau

The twin cam M104.94x/99x in 3.0 and 3.2 guise after the initial M104.98x engines (300e-24 etc) were the start of the chocolate loom. The -24 .98x engine have a different problem in that the bosch controller for the coils is $6K from Mercedes and after market is non existent. The stroked 3.4 AMG engine was based on the .98x engine and the 3.6 used an om606 diesel crank in the M104.941/992 kinda like alpina used the forged M21 diesel crank in their 2.7 M20's.

FOR. f**kS. SAKE. And to further murkify the water around the $16K auction, Shaguar1 who asked for his bid to be removed has a couple of E34's that are a magnitude rarer than the kiwi 540iS's, so he might have been legit? I stand by my statement that the top bid was a shill bidder on behalf of the seller however. Edit: Of course the new $24k price is a knee jerk at the immaculate black 535iS going for moonbeans, yea?

I'd forgive TM every sin under the sun if they banned Rob_ from ever commenting on an auction again.

Stunning photography as always Adro! Seeing as you ended up keeping the E39, is everything for sale at the right price?

I can't seem to be able to search via fuel type or body shape any more. Absolute state of it.

Now THAT is a 6 series! Kent Baigent's old car? Jeez the pre 87 crash 80's must have been something to behold, the amount of money they were all spending on racing cars, racing yachts (Croaky Critchon) and horse racing was staggering.

Stunning! Makes a nice change from the sea of black or white ones. Manual / Auto?

If you're on firefox on a mac - right click then "view background image." If you hold down command at the same time it will open in a new tab. In Chrome you need to inspect element and manually pull the url. In safari you can inspect element and then click on the resources tab, then the images folder which will show all images blown up to full size.

Cheers!

Can you link me? FB is painfully hard to navigate at the best of times...

As the title states, I'd like to get in on a 3.0 before the end of the year. Daytona violet / Mugello red / Bright red are the preferences, cloth interior is a bonus. No to black exterior or grey interiors. Dakar is right out. Polaris to match my E30 would be amazing, but the colour was SA only and I believe there's only one of them in the country (last seen near Ponsonby)? Please get in touch if you're thinking about a change.

An Alpina is something you either get or you don't. Of those that don't, cars like the E36 and E39 on TM currently aren't going to sway them, because the BMW version (M3/M5) was a better product. The E39 being particularly egregious for trying to echo the E28 turbo era mega saloons Alpina were churning out at the time with that awful cloth interior. Manual seats in Alpina as well? No thank you. They really need to have the full fat Lavalina interior, which craps all over anything BMW could put into a car, the Individual department included. The E36 Alpina 3.2 is the same price as a 3.2 Evo, and some additional VDO gauges and switchtronic gearbox does not a better car make. The E60 on TM is an interesting alternative to the M5, the same level of power, just made in a different fashion. I've driven a couple and they're rocket ships, I would dearly love for the white B5 S I've seen down here to be for sale.

Only do this if you want to see some serious sh*t.

That's it yep. Using my suspension on order as an example... The tender is rated for 20Nm/mm and binds first, before becoming a solid section of the suspension under higher loads where the 70Nm/mm linear spring takes over. The advantage is that during your shopping run, the tender is absorbing all the bumps. This is all fine and dandy for a McPherson strut up front like every BMW since the 70's has, but in the rear it's a whole other kettle of fish, and that's when you'll see beehive springs used as a progressive spring compared to a linear one. Jump onto the KW website and have a chat with their consultants about what you want - they know their sh*t.

Yep! I've had KW Classics in E30 M3 spec on order for a few weeks now, but I'm in no rush. Regardless of my choice of KW's for the above, I'd go with KW anyway, purely because you can ask them to set them up how you'd like(spring rates) before they ship. It's well known that our main state highways are goat tracks compared to most developed nations, so some softer spring rates is not a bad thing to ask for. Bilstein coilover systems are bloody awful in NZ conditions. Not entirely pointless - you can set a certain amount of pitch and roll using the damping adjustment. As a general note, I'd avoid any coilover system that doesn't utilise a tender spring unless you like your fillings removed.

Go on...

No such thing as an overpriced classic, just an early purchase that's waiting for the market to catch up.

There's a vaguely listed set that keeps coming up on TM as of late, it might be worth hunting them down as they might be genuine and poorly described.

Difflab in Australia do both Wavetrac helical and MFactory 1.5/2.0 way diffs for the E9x, they also do OS Giken if you're feeling flush.

It's vacuum bagged 2x2 weave.

Had a pair of F650GS' (one a single cylinder, the other a twin Dakar), an F800GS, and then moved onto expensive Italians with interference engines and complicated cam belts. Were I to do it again, an RxxxGS would be my purchase.

Weave pattern can stretch and deform if it's cured under vacuum, 2x2 will show more distortion than 1x1, but if it's autoclaved it won't look anything this. I'd be inclined to agree that it's a dip. Although in saying that, some of the foil repairs in Bermuda on the AC50 during the America's Cup looked this rugged towards the end...

@Harper damn that was going to be my suggestion as well. Was your car a retrim or a trim swap? I know the only m-tex cars in NZ were from Japan, so the original interior must be somewhere! Ray's set is from the blue car that was wrecked, there's an oxford green car that got wrecked as well, so there's that set floating about too. I'm also keen on having my E30 retrimmed in an m cloth, so keep in touch if you find someone capable of the work.

Yes and no. They were always overpriced, but it's probably an outlier rather than a market shift. Like I've said before, the same cars are for sale at prices that don't reflect their worth. I'd almost put money on a 1M not selling for less than 60K this year unless its a fire sale like this one appeared to be. I suspect you could trade your way from a $30K E36 M3 into a $40K E46 M3 into a mint low mileage 1M over the next 18 months if you had the wherewithal. Could be a fun little ownership period.

Oh dear. It's an E12 based Karmann, you'll be able to watch it rust before your very eyes, as distinct from the BMW built E28's which hid their rust secrets from you.