Happy Birthday to my E30, which was made in production week 28 July 1986. 33 years old this week!I collected it the day it was registered 20 Aug 1986 and never been apart since!
It was one of the first batch of RHD cabriolets made, chasis number 038, before the factory closed for the August shutdown 1986.
I’d heard a rumour they were going to start making them in RHD sometime in 86, I wrote to BMW Germany asking them, they replied they were and were sending a LHD over to the UK, to the motor show at GMex Manchester, which had just been converted from an old Victorian railway station to an exhibition centre and opened by the Queen, Easter 1986. This was the announcement by BMW of the 325i cabriolet in RHD form.
Fortunately I’d ordered one two weeks before from a local dealer, red with stone leather, initially they came only with the 325i.
I went to the show & there was the LHD cabriolet in red with black leather. I was smitten. I contacted the dealer and changed my spec to black leather.
Throughout my ownership I’ve tried to keep the car as original as it was built, I think I’ve managed this pretty well, the exception being the BBS’s which enhance the car significantly beyond the bottletops supplied, I’ve kept the bottletops for completeness.
Apart from this what you see above is virtually as the day I picked it up, even down to the original plates, yes the number and the plates!
