You don’t see many E32s on the road anymore. Most have been consigned to the junk yard by now. That’s a shame. With this generation 7-series, BMW hewed close to the guiding principles that served it well back in the day, when it offered cars with simple, unfussy styling and a brawny but somewhat subdued road presence. The V12-powered 750iL was marvelous when running right but monstrously expensive to fix when it broke. The “entry level” 735i, on the other hand, was powered by the notoriously robust, inline six M30 engine. Displacing 3.4 liters, it’s the same motor that found its way into the 535i and 635CSi of the same period. With about 208 hp on tap to move around a car weighing about 3,500 lbs, it was no performance behemoth. But it certainly cost less to run than its larger-engined siblings. That makes this nicely kept 735i the perfect candidate for use as an interesting daily driver.
Month: July 2017
As promised, more 964s. Yesterday I featured the extra spicy Turbo 3.6 and today we’ll step back just a little to the original 964 Turbo. So I guess it’s 3 chilies on your Porsche menu rather than four. I’ll start by saying that I don’t feature these turbos perhaps as much as I’d like, but that is mostly because so many of those I come across are more or less the same. So many of them are Black or the occasional Guards Red with a Black or Tan interior and the mileage will be typical. There is nothing wrong with those cars per se, it’s just that once we’ve looked at one there isn’t as much to excite me for the next one.
Here we will look at two that do not come in one of those very standard colors. Ok, so the first one is still red, but Coral Red Metallic is much more rare, in fact I don’t know if I’ve come across any 964 in this color let alone a Turbo. So it’s different and different is good in this case. Let’s look:
CLICK FOR DETAILS: Coral Red Metallic 1992 Porsche 911 Turbo on eBay
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Continuing on my run of custom coachwork-built cars, this one might be one of the most practical and something that is actually has a mass…
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The more I stare at the 2.3-16, the more I realize just how right Mercedes-Benz got it with the design of this car. The starting point was already a good one. The stock 190E, with its restrained, angular good looks and taut lines, brought Mercedes’s design language out of the 70s and firmly into the 80s. But the flared wheel arches, revised valences and rear deck spoiler found on the 2.3-16 turn the staid W201 into a car that looks ready to go racing. Which it did, first as a rally car and, when that didn’t work out, at the DTM. Power came from a version of the M102 2.3 liter four pot engine – later enlarged to 2.5 liters in the European market – breathed on by British tuning company Cosworth. But despite the looks and pedigree, the 2.3-16 has never attracted the same kind of attention or following as its obvious competitor, the E30 M3. The market for these is pretty spotty. They don’t appear very frequently and when they do, many of them have been battered and broken by neglectful owners. Still, every now and again a really nice one pops up.
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1986 Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16 on eBay
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I think I feel like posting a bunch of 964s this week. We’ll see how that goes. Apparently, yesterday’s Japanese market Slate Grey Carrera 2…
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