Enthusiasts Blogging Our Favorite Classifieds
Wagons. We love them here at GCFSB and with each passing year, a few more models become available to US customers that weren’t sold in this market originally. This 325i Touring is prime in the crosshairs of vintage Bimmer enthusiasts and a few have made their way over to these shores already. This Lachsilber 325i Touring with BBS basketweaves has been recently imported and is ready to be picked up by its next owner down in sunny Florida.
The 540i M-Sport we posted this week posed some interesting questions in regards to the E39s available on the market. The 540i has a good engine and lots of choice bits, but the E39 M5 has the engine and even more choice performance parts. I asked why you wouldn’t just spend a little more to get the Big Daddy, and today we have an example of just how attainable the E39 M5 is these days. Originally owned by the CEO of the Tire Rack, this M5 has just about everything you’d want when looking for a used car – huge Autocheck score, not that many miles (but enough to bring the price down a little), well-informed owners, and overall great condition. Is it worth $16,500? In my eyes, hell yes.
The E39 M5 gets all the press as the best E39, and often as the best M5 ever. Sitting in its shadows is the highly capable 540i. The M-sport came with 6 speeds, M Suspension, and the desirable Style 37 M-Parallels. Today’s has been further upgraded with an M5’s LSD and Dinan chip, helping to up performance levels a little more. Ideally this would be a less-expensive alternative to the king of all supersedans, but the price is dangerously close to decent E39 M5 money. Can the low mileage and choice add-ons make up for missing 100 horsepower and ///M cachet?
For German car fans, Porsche so defined endurance motorsports that BMWs serious efforts in the late 1970s and early 1980s often go overlooked. But if you really wanted to go racing with the big boys in the 1980s and the premium rides from Zuffenhausen were out of your reach, you might just have looked towards March engineering for the solution. March was cutting edge then, a staple in the 1970s F1 scene with some unorthodox designs. With the new prototype categories in the 1980s, March produced a series of prototypes that were developed out of a customer BMW M1 that March modified. After some development, the March 83G and later 86G proved not particularly competitive to the much more highly developed 956/962s, but did win the 1984 Daytona 24hrs with Andial Porsche power. BMW also signed up with March for a run at IMSA GTP with a development of the 320i Turbo Group 5 and Formula 1 engine producing up to a reported 800 horsepower. In qualifying trim for Formula 1, these M12/13 motors could twist around 1,400 horsepower out of that small displacement. With Formula 1 and sports car racing legends David Hobbs and John Watson amongst the ranks of drivers, it looked like a sure bet for some wins. It was for naught, though, as Porsche and later Nissan and Toyota dominated IMSA into the 1990s. BMWs efforts are nearly forgotten, and that spells value in the used prototype market today:
When looking for a fun driver, where do you draw the spending line to get what you want? All of us want a one owner, perfectly maintained example that has been in a heated garage, fed only foie gras and caviar with zero miles. Ironically, though, when cars like that come up for sale the majority of people feel these perfect examples are well overpriced. As such, most of us look for the best example that we can afford. However, are there are times when you can back your expectation level down and accept a slightly more dubious car for a discount? Today’s M Coupe may be a good example of that. A S52 1999 model in Estoril Blue, this M is about to change hands for the fifth time and was in an accident early in its life. Consequently, the asking price is lower than most of the M Coupe market by a notable amount. Would you bite?