Rounding off Turkey Day here at GCFSB, here’s a car that’s could be considered anything but a turkey. A tasty, late model E30 in the form of a 318is. Known in some circles as the “poor man’s M3”, this 3er had the new 1.8 liter M42 four cylinder engine with an updated Bosch Motronic system. With 138 horsepower, this was no dragster, but had excellent weight distribution and was the gateway drug to many great BMWs that would appear over the course of the 1990s. Even though E30 production was soon to be phased out, this model would reaffirm that the 3 series was still the vehicle of choice for those moving up in the world. This 318is comes to us from our reader Corey, who also happens to be the seller.
The E30 Touring influx is reaching critical mass, and where they used to come up once every few months, they are available in various levels of trim on eBay and craigslist around the country. The black on black one we recently featured was very tempting, but pretty spendy. Today’s receives negative points for the automatic transmission, but overall is looking outstanding in Royal Blue and some shiny BBS wheels. 167k miles is nothing to sneeze at, but the bids are starting much lower than the black edition’s $12,500 asking price. If you’re third pedal-averse but live in an area with actual seasons, this is the E30 touring for you!
Are you in the market for some cheap, silly fun? If so, today’s your lucky day. This bronzit 325is, a healthy performer right out of the box, has had turbo slapped on the inline-6 and now pushes out E46 M3 power to the wheels. It’s certainly no garage queen, but that’s clearly not what this bronzit brawler was built for. A little worn paint is no problem when you’re spooling up a fat turbo and drifting on an abandoned racetrack. Any turbo/project car should be approached very carefully, but the seller’s price makes it a little easier to take a gamble. There aren’t many E30s out there for $4k these days, and those that are are probably ready for some hooning. In that case, it might as well have a big turbo!
The Japanese-spec BMW E30 M3 we featured last month is back up for sale at the same price. Given how popular the original M3 has become in the last couple of years, this would be a great way to stand out from the crowd and have a conversation starter at the next club event.
The below post originally appeared on our site October 28, 2014:
The 1980s saw a fair number of interesting and innovative ways to chop the tops off of what would otherwise be lovely coupes; the Carelli 928 and Treser Quattro Roadster are just but two examples that we’ve written up. But long before the Porsche 993 Targa introduced a large sliding glass roof, in 1982 BMW combined with the automotive modeling firm MGA and some backing from The Observer to create a quite unique expression of topless motoring. Think of it as a BMW 635CSi Targa if you’d like; but boy is it unique and well done compared to some other 1980s creations. It’s also on sale, if you have a spare $50,000:
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