What got you into E30's?

[Rickz]

When my older brother bought one when I was about 15 (3 years ago)

Love to look, the old-skoolness and the way that theres hardly any about..quite unique I think.

[gaszman]

me i was lookinfg for an estate and almost bought a rover with t&t but saw whilst working in hedge end my old touring . left my nos payed 450 although he wonted 650 no tax no mot didnt start , came the day get it started drove home over heated broke down on the motor way . limped home did all the work with help drove her for 4 years simon 13 has her now , and got a tech 1 and this motor i will die in . i cannot stress the build quality and the connection between car and driver and road just like driving my mk1 escort 1600gt loved it . as for the cost of these motors doing what i do i go to some unplesant places in the south i see e30 parked on drives every day flat tyres just left . just last week i saw a black 320 touring 2 flat tyres rear 1 white 318 2 door no sunroof a 325i silver 2 door with bbs wheels with bbs cntr caps a 318 red/ pink touring thats all with in 10 miles from my house they will all go from there drives soon as the council will remove car foc sad really.

[LeonNewton]

I'm shore there are people on hear that would take the foc

[bigredbmw]

i bought my e30 off my m8 8 yr ago for 850 quid and neve looked back since in all the time ave had it i have probably spent 3000 pound on it including buyin it

do you do your own work?

well al have a bash at most of it ... hasnt been that bad a motor really

[bigredbmw]

me i was lookinfg for an estate and almost bought a rover with t&t but saw whilst working in hedge end my old touring . left my nos payed 450 although he wonted 650 no tax no mot didnt start , came the day get it started drove home over heated broke down on the motor way . limped home did all the work with help drove her for 4 years simon 13 has her now , and got a tech 1 and this motor i will die in . i cannot stress the build quality and the connection between car and driver and road just like driving my mk1 escort 1600gt loved it . as for the cost of these motors doing what i do i go to some unplesant places in the south i see e30 parked on drives every day flat tyres just left . just last week i saw a black 320 touring 2 flat tyres rear 1 white 318 2 door no sunroof a 325i silver 2 door with bbs wheels with bbs cntr caps a 318 red/ pink touring thats all with in 10 miles from my house they will all go from there drives soon as the council will remove car foc sad really.

i want the front bumper .............

[stonesie]

My first E30 was a rusty old hag of a 320I 2 door in cirrus blue, the prevoius owner sold it to me cheap and left me a suprise gift by way of 50psi in the rear tyres That introduced me to the rightness that is a straight 6 and rear drive, I scrapped it in the end due to it being rotten as hell underneath but I was hooked.

I tried the cheap economical banger (corsa 1.5 TD.. 67mpg but was written off by a drunk driver)
Then a 1.8SI escrote, constant ford problems including a self destructive fusebox... Nice

Then got the current touring cheap off Ebay with 11 months T&T, flew through its MOT this year too

[poolnoodle]

My Sapphire E21 318i - I needed more cylinders

[BadDave]

It's all my uncle's fault.

He went through a couple of chromie's then bought a laser blue met 320 tourer and i usually got the phone call when it needed any work done.
When the timing belt went(he didn't bother changing them) he bought a malachite green 318 tourer to run about in till the 320 had been fixed. It was alright i suppose, as a temp replacement. He kept hold of the 318 and was running it occassionally and it got pressed back into service when the timing belt went a 2nd time,next thing I know is, there's a tech 1 sport engine donor sitting in the drive to covert the 320. After the conversion, I persuaded myself to take the 318 tourer off his hands as way of "payment" for all the work done. Someone later ran into it and wrote it off, sourced another malachite 325 tourer and ran it for about 2 1/2 years before putting it on it's roof and letting it rest back on it's wheels so I could still drive it home .Took me about 3 1/2 months to find a decent tourer shell(lowly 316 4 pot) and have fitted all the good bits from the 325.

[daimlerman]

What got me into E30's?
When I was at school you got playground presence if your dad drove a Mk2 Jag. so it was'nt that!
I was looking for a solid,good looking cheapish 2nd car for the wife,and came across the white 316i touring.Bought her a touring so that when she looked over her shoulder to back the thing she could see all of the car. I found that I liked driving it so decided to buy myself a 'proper' one with a 'proper' engine.This turned out to be the laches 4 door 320i that grew into a 2.7 with m-tec suspension....then I felt that the touring should be replaced with a 'proper' engined one,hence the M50 engined 'folly'....anyone want a rusty 316i touring that is mechanicly sound,get in touch after zone roam....

[SickEddy]

i originally was a ford fan. i havent been driving long but my 1st cars were mk4 escorts and mk2 orions. then one day i saw an e30 for sale cheap (tech 2 316, 1.8carb which i bought) and thought why do i want this 1.4 escort when its just a rusty chavvy slow fwd ford version of an e30 that will die at 100k miles when i can have a quicker more reliable and actually cheaper to insure headturning beauty that will pass 250k miles no problem...
saying that i am still planning on getting an s2 turbo as a weekday car lol. i work nights so ill fix it in the mornings before bed

[armanib]

Dad always had these and capris so i fell in love with them and when dad was gonna weigh this one i said i want her

[toecutter666]

My mate, never looked at bm's before but he was about to put a match to his 318 because of non starting problems. Gave him 20 quid, got it home from hampshire then a weekend tinkering, £1 for a bit of fuel hose and i was hooked. Gave the remains of the car to zaust on here but went straight out to find another victim

[otterstricks]

I wanted to go on a road trip round Northern and Eastern Europe, I needed something reliable with some baggage space and cheap. I bought a '91 3.18 touring for £290 (with 1 months mot, which I then put her through with no faults) having not seen any pics on her on ebay, haha. I wasn't in the country at the time so a friend picked her up. She had noisey tappets a dead spot between 3500-4000rpm and she broke down in central Vilnius in Lithuania, still she limped home with lots of left foot braking and handbrake in order to keep my right foot free to hold the revs over 2000rpm.
Once home she devoloped further problems and I sold her to fund more travelling.

Now that I'm back I wanted another "Heidi", so I bought one (£480) off a dodgy character called Serg (beware) near Chester. The water pump blew on the trip home from the purchase so I had to sleep in the car then fit a new one in the morning as I live in Scotland. She is now my daily runner and going well, fingers crossed, she needs some body work but soon I'll have her looking pretty sexy.

[Dave_M3]

Mate Seany (da4x4turbo) got me hooked on them after he gave me a spin in one of his 318iS he had 3 or 4 years ago as well as a few other mates having E30s so I really got to like them

Wanted one since then so got a 316i-lux when I got my licence until a year later I got a 318iS... then a month later I got anohter one for a trackcar project... Seany is to blame for me getting that idea too!!!
Hooked since then really.

And now I want a third one for another idea I have

[George]

Was always into BMWs, previously had 2 E36s and an E34.

Was considering an E36 vert, but imo the E30 has a lot more charm and charisma, so decided to give it a go.

[nm1]

i love donuts

in ireland sports are the updated version of the toyota twincam, donut machines,

Mint twincans over here make £12,000+

so e30 bmws are the prefered choice now, plus they look and go far better than a toyota corrolla.

[Dave_M3]

^^^



Thanks to opinions like that people in the UK think all an E30 does once it gets off the ferry is go round in circles.

Ok, people do drift them quite abit at times but you can say that about any rwd car.

Donuts are just gay in my oppinion and seems to be people that are just afraid or just can't drive a rwd car properly or have fun drifting at more than 10mph.
People even gather on a open space for whole days just to watch people rev the shit out of there car going around a cone.... WTF like?!?


E30s are not a preferred choice from the "diffing" brigade.
They still want AE86s and it's pretty daft buying a slow car for 12K to just fuck about in a carpark or cross-road too


The drifting, diffing donut machine is a 180 or 200sx these days as they are jap, turbo and cheap.

[da4x4turbo]

The drifting, diffing donut machine is a 180 or 200sx these days as they are jap, turbo and cheap.

Agreed, The skangers who are only into Doughnuts are too tight to pay the extra money to tax a 325i. Thank god. (For those of you not from Ireland the road tax on a 325is in Ireland is €935 p/a) Also the maintenance costs for an e30 are much much higher. To the skangers; a 2.0 Litre Jap car costs €614 to tax for a year and will be more powerful and more reliable. So it's a no brainer.

However what these people don't realise is that they aren't driving one of the most iconic cars ever produced, and their Jap S**tboxes will never ever be a patch on the e30.

This e30 Revival that's going on at the moment is awesome!


As for what got me into e30's ?........ two things:

1: My neighbour had a nice 4dr blue 316i that I used to walk past on my way home from school and I used to really admire.

2: When I was 17 and on the cusp of starting to drive I was taken for my first spin in an e30....... Balls out sideways on the limiter in 3rd gear in my mates 88 318i which was fitted with a 323i lump, dogleg box and a welded diff.
That was absolutely one of the best experiences I ever had. Before that I thought VW Polo's were the way to go!

[da4x4turbo]

i love donuts

in ireland sports are the updated version of the toyota twincam, donut machines,

Mint twincans over here make £12,000+

so e30 bmws are the prefered choice now, plus they look and go far better than a toyota corrolla.

I completely disagree, the e30's aren't the preferred choice now. Maybe a few years ago. The skangers car of choice will always be japanese.

The e30 stopped being the preferred choice as soon as people realised how much they cost to maintain, run and tax.

You don't see a fraction of the amount of 325i's on the road these days as in the past. I don't know where they all went!

Oh and for those of you from outside Ireland, when he says twincams he means an AE86 Toyota Corolla GT Coupe.

[StevenC3828]

1991, just started secondary school and there was a diamond black 325i 2 door with BBS wheels.

It was cool and belonged to the coolest teacher there - Mr Barnes. He was polo neck wearing D & T playboy who was fired for taking a sicky. He thought going skiing and having threesomes with blonde twins was more important than my education!!

I had a 1.1 fiesta, Sh!itroen AX 1.4d, ZX 1.4i , ZX TD Volcane, 306 D Turbo (had enough, should never had bought it lost too much money, poor build quality) then helped my dad sell his 1.8i Xantia and fourtrak by driving them around with for sale signs in them, ditto with a 106 1.1i for my sister which was fun. I came to my senses remembered about e30s so I bought a local diamond black 2 door with bbs wheels. Never looked back since! So much fun soo little money and such good quality & engineering.

[don-king]

^^^



Thanks to opinions like that people in the UK think all an E30 does once it gets off the ferry is go round in circles.

Ok, people do drift them quite abit at times but you can say that about any rwd car.

Donuts are just gay in my oppinion and seems to be people that are just afraid or just can't drive a rwd car properly or have fun drifting at more than 10mph.
People even gather on a open space for whole days just to watch people rev the shit out of there car going around a cone.... WTF like?!?


E30s are not a preferred choice from the "diffing" brigade.
They still want AE86s and it's pretty daft buying a slow car for 12K to just **** about in a carpark or cross-road too


The drifting, diffing donut machine is a 180 or 200sx these days as they are jap, turbo and cheap.

+1

[Morat]

I had a very slight "off" in my Fiat Coupe which resulted in needing a new wheel, tyre and some suspension tweaking. I was feeling broke so I was offered a 318 touring for less than the cost of a new Fiat wheel.
My list of objections was
1. It's a BMW (driven only by wankers)
2. It's white (80s relic driven by wankers)
3. It's a 1.8 so it'll be slow as Tuesdays
4. I'm too young for an estate car.

Then I drove it and loved it. So I bought it. Since then I've had two more white E30 tourings
The Fiat is back in the garage as I type

[nm1]

da4x4turbo if you lived where i live in northern ireland just outside newry right on the border within a radius of 15 mile i know of at least 20 325i sports most of them get hammered.

i learnt the hard way having to put a new clutch, slave, kazz 1.5 lsd, and an engine in my sport,

now i dont drift unless it is very wet, where i live sports ARE the prefered drift car, i should know as i live right beside a tyre recycling plant and every day i see lads in sports and e36 m3 going up to get part worn tyres for £3 each,

i hope i dont sound like a knob i dont mean to insult any1.

[Dave_M3]

You don't sound like a knob but the 20 other people around you hammering Sports and buying part worns for them and E36 M3s do sound like right tools!

The E36 M3 makes a very good drift car but rough ones should be used as a proper drift car on the track rather than ruining road cars.

I seriously doubt most of those peoply running for £3 tyres can drift properly anyway as you don't want a tyre that could disentegrate after being half worn and sat in a pile for a few months at 40 or 50mph in third gear

They probably never even get out of 1st going around those cones

[psychochild187]

200 quid got me into the e30
i like 6 cylinders and rwd and it looked good.

and the fact i kill cars and couldnt afford a skyline .
so 7 or so later here i am