Bit of a long winded tale but bare with me.
It all began back in April a group of us went on an epic road trip around Europe culminating in visiting Worthersee (largest VW gathering in the world), we even had a video made about it. It's pretty good but I'm biased.
http://vimeo.com/67299212
Between blatting around the Nurburgring, racing classic Porsches on autobahns, losing 5th gears, riding rollercoasters down mountains and being that guy that brought a terrible looking Corrado to Worthersee (it was a very good trip), we stopped off in Munich and after a night out payed a visit to BMW Welt.
It's a great place and well worth a visit and it confirmed some thing I'd been thinking about for a while, I needed a BMW.
I started looking at E46s to begin with, prices were good. Add an Eisenmann and a VF engineering 'charger into the mix and it ticked a lot of boxes. I'm already considering it again just talking about it!
Then I was bored on a Saturday.
Decided to pop down to the BMW dealership and look at an E92. Used prices had dropped into my budget so why not aye? After not being taken seriously (probably because of my age) and being told I could only test drive one if I'd already agreed to buy it, I basically got mugged off with a brochure (won't be using that dealership for servicing).
The brochure turned out to be a blessing in disguise however, flicking though it at home I got to this page.
Oh hello what's that there on the left?
4 months later here we are.
Picture courtesy of Slam Sanctuary from their Retro Rides Gathering coverage.
After a fair bit of research, viewing an absolute dog (note to sellers, claiming an engine rebuild with a bit of note paper with 'Engine rebuild 23/8/11' written on it is not very convincing), and forking out a fortune on a specialist inspection I tracked down this beauty at an Evo and Impreza specialist of all places.
It's a 1988 E30 M3 (if you didn't know that bit why are you even reading this?) Evolution 2 in Nogaro Silver with 70k on the clock. The Evo 2s were a limited run of 500 that differed from the standard model with raised compression on the S14 engine, improved air intake, lightened flywheel and tweaked management upping power to 220hp.
Also had the 16" wheels as standard, larger chin spoiler, additional boot spoiler and brake cooling ducts in place of front fogs. Thinner glass and a lightened bumpers and boot lid drops the weight by 22 pounds over the standard model as well. Interior is a half leather pattern exclusive to the Evo 2.
My car is number 16 of 500 and rolled off the production line 2 days after I was born which I thought was pretty cool. Most of the options are the ones that come as standard on the Evo 2 but this does have an electric sunroof, headlight washers and air con. It was sold from a Munich dealership in '88 and imported to the UK in '89 by Munich Legends who looked after it for most of it's life. Got a massive folder of history for the car, one highlight is for it changing hands for £8000 in 2001, wish I'd got it for that!
In the last 10 years I've got receipts for £20k worth of work so it's certainly been well looked after. The previous owner was a Swiss banker who bought it in 2009 after instructing Munich Legends to find him a car. He exported it to Spain and kept it garaged with his friends collection of Group B rally cars (including the infamous RS200 that ploughed into the crowd in Portugal). The car was kept UK registered whilst in Spain and collected this year to be sold after the dealership delivered his friend a road homologation Metro 6R4, some people have a hard life don't they.
Modification wise it's pretty limited, the air con system has been updated to use a more modern gas or something (trophy worthy surely?) and it's lowered on Koni adjustable struts with H&R springs.
Future plans are to look after and enjoy it basically, there's a few rough edges that need tidying up and I'll probably get some new wheels for it at some point, those BBS brake fans on Wheel Whores look mighty tempting.
Oh and dogleg ftw.
A week after buying it, I headed up to the Evo Triangle with some of the rest of KlubOrly for our friend Danny's birthday. Drove the car hard on some awesome roads with some great friends and shat myself the first time the back end stepped out (don't laugh it's my first RWD).
One run resulted in a horrific scraping noise arising upon turning into a lay-by, I got out imagining my front bumper hanging off but it turned out I'd somehow managed to damage the offside wheel arch inspection cover, tearing a bit of it back so it rubbed on the tyre, annoying but not the end of the world.
Another plus is that our friend Szyman came along and took some awesome pictures.
He's asked to do a full shoot with the car which I'm more than happy to let him do.
I think I shot myself in the foot a bit buying an Evo2 as I'm tempted to mess with it but anything I do will need to be reversible. Still leaves the options of Sport Evo rear spoiler, carbon inlet and chip though I suppose...
The car hasn't been out since Evo triangle sadly, planned to go to Players but overslept. I also need to take a crash course in car care, as anyone who knows me will tell you I'm not one for cleaning cars but I think it'd be a bit of a travesty to have this sitting filthy.
It almost came out a fortnight ago for a M retrospective magazine shoot but after being chased for ages to bring it I was dropped the day before for a Ravaglia that was closer to the shoot which was a bit annoying, especially as they were going to detail it for me.
After being let down by that shoot, I had a good day at the end of October.
Look at for it in the March or April issue of Classic and Sports Car, hopefully on the cover!
So this morning my friend Szymon did a shoot of the car.
Moving it around for him this morning I couldn't help but admire it myself, absolutely love it and so glad I'm lucky enough to own it!
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lol
