Discovering the interesting history of my E34 540i

[Kees 594]

Ever since I got my E34 540i back in November 2020, I had a strange feeling it would have an interesting history. Something about having factory parking sensors….in 1994 screamed that the original owner had some money. I always thought it would be interesting to try and retrace at least part of the car’s history, seeing as it has done over 370,000km.

The only clue I had of prior owners was I could see on a report that the car had been registered under a company in 1997. I found the director of the company and googled his name. Up popped some old news articles from 2006 detailing he owned some prestigious racehorses and was even a New Zealand actor back in the 70s. Seeing as he appeared to be the third owner, things started to get interesting.

I managed to get in contact with him, and actually went and saw him to ask him some questions about the car. He was more than happy to have a chat but didn’t seem overly enthused about the car which was a bit disheartening. He did manage to remember the name of the second owner, “he was a merchant banker from Remuera”, which was very impressive seeing as he had bought the 540 24 years prior.

I googled the second owner’s name and immediately I had a plethora of information and a publicly listed contact number. I decided to give him a call on a Sunday and to my surprise he answered. He was happy to hear the car was still around and owned by an enthusiast. He was also keen to see the car again, seeing as it had been around 20 years since he had last seen it. We then scheduled a time to meet and about 3 weeks later I took the car out to Remuera to show it to him. What he had to say about the car was very interesting.

He knew the first owner, who happened to be New Zealand’s highest paid salary earner back in 1994! He said the car was bought brand new from the BMW dealer in New Market and was the highest specified 540i available in New Zealand at the time. He bought the car from the first owner in 1997, but sold it soon after to the third owner, only to buy it back in the late 90s and then sold it to the people I bought it off in the early 2000s (who also happened to be a famous architect).

This meant my car had always transacted privately and has stayed in Auckland its whole life. I am only the fifth owner which is somewhat impressive for a 27 year old car. The second owner also had a nice collection of vehicles such as an old Daimler and an F10 M5, and exclaimed that the paint on the 540 still looked pretty good considering its very high mileage, which he attributed to his passion for detailing.

He then began to recount some interesting things that had happened to the car under his ownership:

The car was always looked over by a friend of his, who also happened to be one of Bruce McLaren’s mechanics.

While on Holiday in Rotorua, the gearbox locked up and it had to be pushed by a bunch of people up an incline out of the motel driveway. It then got driven home in third gear as that was the only gear that worked. The car ended up having to get a new gearbox at 70,000km, which he was understandably unimpressed about.

Another time he recalls being stuck behind a truck with the car fully loaded for the weekend, so when a nice opportunity arose for an overtake, he gave it the boot to wind up the V8. About half way through the overtake the car decided to blow a coolant hose, spraying steam and coolant all over the windscreen, completely obscuring his view, leaving him no choice but to conclude the overtake with no vision and then immediately pull over to sort the mishap.

After hearing all the stories about my car, it’s made me fall in love with it even more.   

[Michael. 2313]

Interesting findings, surprised to you were able to get in touch with a couple of the previous owners after so many years! 

Curious it had a gearbox fault, wonder what went wrong. 

[Kees 594]

1 hour ago, Michael. said:

Interesting findings, surprised to you were able to get in touch with a couple of the previous owners after so many years! 

Curious it had a gearbox fault, wonder what went wrong. 

Yeah I was very lucky to find out the amount I did considering how old the car is!

The second owner told me that apparently BMW thought that the gearbox (it would be a ZF box right?) once made only needed very minimal servicing and consequently did minimal servicing to it causing it to seize (no fluid changes or anything). The car had always been serviced with BMW so I think BMW paid for majority if not completely covered the cost of the new gearbox. 

[NZ BMW 368]

I can just imagine someone who bought this new in 1994 with PARKING SENSORS fitted. 

Brick phone, second dedicated line for a fax machine in his house, dialup modem, Walkman and a 10CD hifi setup. Total baller. 

[Kees 594]

3 hours ago, NZ BMW said:

I can just imagine someone who bought this new in 1994 with PARKING SENSORS fitted. 

Brick phone, second dedicated line for a fax machine in his house, dialup modem, Walkman and a 10CD hifi setup. Total baller. 

She's got the BellSouth Aerial and the obligatory holes in the console where the brick would have been mounted!

And.... 10 Stacker in the boot!!

You nailed it lol  

I keep an old 90s Motorola in the car just to emulate the baller-ness the original owner would have experienced. Car would have been about ~270K accounting for inflation in today's money but when you were earning 1 million USD in 94' a 540 would have been pocket change to swing.