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The BMW M Coupe has become the darling of the BMW modern classic set. This was a car designed with one purpose in mind: speed. Enthusiasts are all over these cars and prices have shot up accordingly. But for those who might want to spend a little less and could use something a bit more tame, there’s an option for you: the Z3 3.0i coupe. This was a fairly obscure offering in the US lineup, since this car wasn’t designed for outright speed but had the same two seat, hardtop layout as the mental M Coupe. This Z3 3.0i Coupe for sale in Portland, Oregon has under 80,000 miles on the clock and is equipped with the automatic gearbox.
If the Speed Yellow C2S featured yesterday wasn’t attention-grabbing enough, or you just find a standard Carrera to be a bit slow, then perhaps this car will suit your needs. This 1997 Porsche 993 Turbo is somewhat of a mutt, though I mean that in the most positive sense. The front spoiler and rear wing were grabbed from the GT2 and surround a tuned 993 Turbo S engine. The Turbo S was only produced during the final production year of the 993 and housed a 3.6 liter twin-turbocharged flat-six delivering 424 hp to all four wheels. These were then combined with a variety of other components from the Porsche parts bin and from the respective tuners to produce a car capable of 530hp. The total package is pretty stunning and sure to be one of the better looking and better performing tuned Porsches available.
After Audi turned the automotive world on its ear in the early 1980s with Quattro four-wheel drive, other automakers were quick to cash in on the craze. Mercedes-Benz tested the waters with four-wheel drive in passenger cars by way of their 4Matic system. Introduced in the W124 E class sedan and estate, it gave buyers in climates with less than favorable weather the option of using these cruisers year round. You don’t see a lot of these early 4Matics around these days, making this black 300TE for sale in Michigan a neat find.
As my E28 sits in the shop for some serious work, I’ve been reexamining the haste with which I jumped into an almost 200k-mile 80s BMW. Would I have been wiser to heed the common cries (often my own!) of “buy low mileage, save the headaches!” I’m young and dumb, but more than that, I was excited about having a rebuild already taken care of and having a car I could drive without reservation. If I were a little older and a little wiser (and had a bigger bank account), I’d probably go for lower mileage, but 80s BMWs will most likely be seriously expensive at that point. So jump in while you can folks, and snag the good ones. This 104k-mile M6 appears to be one of the good ones.
Performance figures. Manufacturers agonize and boast about them. Enthusiasts taunt others with claimed 0-60 times, top speeds and lateral grip. What’s often lost is that seldom are these figures truly achievable in the real world, and that the really impressive feature – especially amongst super cars – is that these cars need to perform incredibly, but then to also start every time, be reliable, comfortable, and have a warranty. Take for example the blistering Veyron; you can poo-poo it’s heady top speed and Saturn V-esque acceleration, but as a feat of engineering alone it’s magnificent. Top that performance with a car that most of the time can be driven like an Audi A8 – up to and including in snow – and it’s simply mind boggling the amount of constraints that were placed on the engineering squad that produced it. Of course, throw those constraints out the window and the performance level of the Veyron is suddenly approachable or in some cases can be surpassed, even by a one-off from a small tuning firm. Such is the case with today’s car that launched a full decade ahead of the Veyron. Built by notable Porsche and Mercedes-Benz tuner Lotec for an extremely deep-pocketed individual, the C1000 pushed the performance envelope to another level. That level – a claimed 268 mph – makes it faster than nearly every supercar even today, 20 years later. Today the one and only C1000 – chassis number 1 of 1 – is available on Ebay:
