Enthusiasts Blogging Our Favorite Classifieds
After a long winter for many of us, clear skies and sunshine are back. A car like this M Roadster epitomizes summer, looking resplendent in Dakar Yellow. This particular example for sale in New York has under 50,000 miles on the clock and offers M3 levels of performance in a fun, diminutive drop-top package.
While the first generation BMW M3 kept a lot of its DTM racing roots in tact, the second generation E36 M3 moved the chains a bit. More power was dialed in but a bit more softness was added to the equation. Gone was the high strung, race derived 2.3 liter four-cylinder powerplant in favor of a six-cylinder engine that was related more closely to its lesser siblings than any other M engine had been before. Still, 240 horsepower was nothing to sneeze at in the mid 1990s. This 1995 M3 for sale in Connecticut represents the first year of US sales for this sports car icon. Its odometer reads less than 50,000 miles and it has the super desirable M Cloth interior.
The Dakar Yellow BMW M3 Sedan we featured late last year is back on offer. If you need a bit of practicality with your M car serving, there are few better formulas than the E36 M3 sedan.
The E46 BMW M3 is a car loved by many enthusiasts but it always seems to me that the love is anything but unconditional. During its six year production run the third generation M3 had its fair share of issues that have led to it being a very divisive car. Many swear that these cars are the pinnacle of BMW engineering before they lost their way, others point to them as a prime example of what happens when a community is in denial. Honestly I don’t fall into either camp, but I can see how both sides would have a valid argument. On the one hand these cars can be your ticket to having insane amounts of naturally aspirated fun and on the other they can drain your savings account faster than a fantasy sports gambling site. As with any used vehicle there are specific years and specific issues you need to look out for: VANOS failure, cracking rear subframes, snapping rear springs and of course the whole SMG unit. Most of these issues affected all years of the E46 M3 but if you got your hands on a manual you could avoid that final one all together. However, there was one particular model that I think warrants consideration despite it being saddled with BMW’s fancy manumatic transmission, the M3 ZCP.
Laguna Seca Blue is one of the most desirable colors for the future-classic E46 M3, and today we have an example that will probably spend most of its life parked as a preservation specimen. With just under 10k miles, it’s barely been broken in is priced as one of the best E46s out there. I can’t see anyone spending this much money on such a car and putting any considerable amount of miles on it. Alas, this Ultimate Driving Machine will not be driven, but in a few decades it will stand as one of the finest examples of one of the most venerated millennial sports cars. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this car, as Carter wrote it up back in July 2014 and from a previous seller and in unmodified form in May 2014. It has to be said that the price a year ago seems much more compelling and fitting.
