Hi everyone!
First time poster but been observing for a long time. Currently, I have a thread on the Mk2 Golf owners club so going to do a bit of a copy and paste, so some bits may not make sense initially. However, going forward will be standalone!
Initially the car was bought to be a cheap fun replacement, but I have a feeling it's going to be far from this as I delve into the E30 community.
Anyway, enough rambling!
Well, my C5 S6 is now gone to fund a wedding and house purchases and with the current COVID situation it allowed me to start looking at cars which aren't necessarily used for daily activities.
I spent a long-time annoying Mr & Mrs Mac alongside Ben Straker and the 'The Wagars' about finding the correct MK2 GTI 16V - spent a good while looking before mostly coming across rubbish and projects in my price range.
That is when I came across this, It was on page 65 of Car and Classic; shows you how deep I was into a search of listed cars. It looked relatively clean and promising and had been listed for one day.
It was listed as a 318i Auto Touring - Eagle eyed viewers may notice the M42 with an M50 Coil On plug modification, lurking in the engine bay from a 318is. This means: DOHC 1.8 16V with approx. 134bhp @ 6000rpm and 127lb-ft @ 4600rpm.
This provided an interesting alternative after initially wanting a MK2 GTI 16v. One aspect of promise was that the car was built from a well know 'old skool figure' in the BMW E30 scene - the engine had only 50k miles and was sourced from another well versed E30 member called Andrew Everett who has actually published literature including 'BMW E30 - 3 Series Restoration Bible'. In combination, the body has only covered 81k so I thought it was worth the risk to at least go and view the car. Thread linked below if you're interested in past history:
viewtopic.php?f=25&t=269261
Me and Jasmine made the trip down to Windsor to view that car, in the meantime I had found serious history on the car in regards to the build thread and by googling the registration I had found the picture below. This was when I became worried:
Arrived at the sellers house, the guy was really quite polite and walked me through the E30's history and how much he had driven it etc. It turns out that he is a uni student so had only covered 1700 miles since September 2018 with his dad starting the car and letting it run every week. The car was kept under a cover on the drive way.
I took a few pictures, there was a few things that worried me which are pictured but overall it's solid - all the boot floor is rock solid, carpets are dry, scruttle and windscreen all clean!
These are the bad bits:
The car drove really well, really very tight, went and stopped well. Only issue was the power steering has been removed which I have in the boot because the pump failed.
The only thing I was disapointed was the little grotty bits pictured and the fact the paint needs full correction - however, seller was willing to negotiate and ended up leaving a deposit!
So picked the car up - made it about 2 minutes, filled up with fuel and it ended up spilling over the forecourt. Attendant wasn't very happy!
Turns out this one has an overflow; I'm going to keep an eye on this as these E30's are notorious for rotten filler necks. I've checked it and it seems solid but will update. Seller said he would pay for anything that needs doing on that front as he wasn't aware of an issue however, I felt a bit sorry for him so graciously declined his offer.
Felt a bit sketchy but pushed on and the car drove the 70 odd miles to Essex perfectly.
