Hi! Welcome back to blog post #2 for Classic Bimmer Bits; we’re practically pros now. Hopefully you’re back because you enjoyed the first post, or you’re at least were curious to see if there’s a possibility of this being worth your time on a regular basis. Today’s post is a little more history, we’ll be diving into more practical content next week. If you do enjoy reading, go ahead and subscribe! I’ll do my best to provide helpful, engaging content, sprinkled with my own brand of terribly corny humor.
Last week I mentioned that Classic Bimmer Bits was born out of my love for E30’s. The question I’ll seek to answer this week is, how did I get into E30’s?
The car that started it all
During my freshman year of college, in need of a car, I inherited my grandfather’s 1986 Honda Accord LX. I absolutely loved that car. First, it was my grandfather’s. I loved and respected him immensely, he had passed away several years earlier, and so it meant a lot to drive his car. It still had trinkets of his inside, like the “FLY” license plate on the front, his gloves in the trunk, and a vintage wood-handled flathead screwdriver that I still own. Second, it faithfully got me through college, including 2 years of commuting home nearly every weekend to visit my girlfriend (now my wife!), and several years into my professional career. Third, after a while, that car had so many darn quirks that I’m not sure anyone but me could manage to drive it. The gauge cluster lights didn’t work unless I tapped it just right, and even then would occasionally blink out. For almost 6 months while I traced down a vacuum leak, the car wouldn’t idle on it’s own, and required one foot on the gas, one foot on the brake at every red light. The auto transmission was clunky. The carburetor was so old and so weak that hard right turns could be precarious, as the fuel in the bowl sloshed away from vacuum port and starved the engine. It was ridiculous, and I loved it.
Unfortunately, many good things must come to an end. After nearly 30 years on the road, the rust in the unibody got so bad that it wouldn’t pass inspection, and looked like it should barely be holding together. It was time to say goodbye. Well, not quite. With that much family and personal history, I could heartlessly send that car off to the scrap yard. Reminiscent of Mike Mulligan’s steam shovel, that beautiful old car rests in my basement, patiently waiting to be turned into a driving simulator. Someday she’ll take a lap around the Nurburgring. But that’s a story for another blog post.
The In Betweeners
With the old girl off the road, it was time for a “new” car. Being a rational and practical human being, I bought a 2001 Honda Civic, a perfect commuter car. Hey, at least it had a manual transmission and I could get back into driving a stick, right? Wrong. I hated it. And unfortunately totalled it shortly thereafter (NOT on purpose).
100 horsepower and plain vanilla wasn’t going to cut it the next time around, so I bought a 2003 Jetta GLI. VR6, 6 speed manual, good handling, heated seats, what could be better? Actually, I really liked that car. It was quick, and a lot of fun to drive. But something just wasn’t working out. It was missing… personality. Everything worked (sort of. Thanks, VW electrical gremlins). It just, went, from place to place with nothing to make the drive a challenge or remotely interesting. At that point, I knew I needed to get an older car, something that had time to develop some character and quirkiness. But what?
The ultimate driving machine?
Many hours of research later, I settled on an E30 as the car for me. I had had a 944 Turbo project car that had gotten me interested in German cars. The E30’s gorgeous 80’s lines and iconic nose were incredibly unique compared to contemporary cars. And the reputation was exactly what I wanted: indisputably glorious to drive, fun to work on, invariably quirky, and relatively reliable if cared for properly. It fit the bill perfectly, so the obvious next step was to find one!
Unfortunately, being a little quirky myself, I decided a needed a very specific E30: a four door, manual 325ix. I have kids, and wanted to be able to stick a carseat in the back row if necessary. I live in PA and wanted to drive it daily through the winter, so I figured AWD was the way to go. And a manual transmission because… well because it’s a manual transmission.
There doesn’t seem to be a solid consensus on exactly how many 4 door, manual 325ix’s were produced, everyone you ask who has access to BMW databases comes up with a different number. It’s somewhere in the ballpark of 3000. After 25 years of snow and salt, there aren’t that many left around. I spent months scouring Craigslist, Facebook, and the R3VLimited forums. Everything that popped up in my searches was either absolutely beaten, visibly badly rusted, or really expensive.
Finally, a car showed up on the forums that seemed to be what I was looking for. Lachssilber Metallic, 4 door, 5 speed, in apparent good condition. Some rust in the battery box that had already been repaired. Working AWD transfer case, smooth running engine with 183k miles, gray cloth interior that could use a cleaning, but wasn’t bad. And the price was right. The only catch? It was in Montreal.
Bringing a foreign car into the US is no easy task (future blog post material here!), but it’s do-able. The internet pretty much promises that it’s easy! So, after a couple of messages back and forth with the seller, I bought myself a one way ticket and headed north!
Bringing it home
The story of actually buying the car, getting it through customs, and getting home is a story for another day. The tale of getting it titled in PA is a tome that could span weeks. The rust that I discovered during the first safety inspection will definitely be a future blog post. But one thing is for sure: by the end of my road-trip home from Montreal, I was in love with that car. That drive validated that E30’s were what I had hoped they would be. A car with enough spunk to be delightful to toss around on back roads, but with enough “luxury” features to be a great daily driver. A car with enough character and quirkiness to make driving everyday a unique and enjoyable experience. A car that the home mechanic can maintain and repair, with parts still readily available at prices that normal people can afford. To be incredibly cliche, they are, in my mind “The ultimate driving machine.”
If I haven’t made it obvious already, I’ll state it plainly: I think you should buy an E30. This website exists to help you keep your E30 running and make it fun to own, and I hope in future blog posts (maybe as soon as next week?) to help you figure out which of the many E30 variants is the right one for you. Stay tuned!