How I became an E30 fanboy...

In many things I'm really something of a hack, sometimes cars could fall under this vague category.  In the last 10 years or so that I've been a mild track addict I've hit it, literally and figuratively, on two-wheels and four quite a lot.  In point of fact my first track experience was on two wheels and did not go well for me.  In the first lap of the first session of the first time I was ever on a track I had an off.  I bent the bike and, worse, I bent myself.  I was back at it a month later--shoulder still recovering from dislocation, broken ankle taped up tightly in my boot--on my patched up SV650S to prove that the track hadn't beaten me...that I wasn't going to let it beat me.

No, the track hadn't be beaten me but it bent me.  Hurt me.  Made me realize that, first, I'd not given it enough respect and, second, that while I loved going fast on the track maybe I was going about it all wrong, approaching it with the wrong weapon for me.  Maybe, just maybe, I'd be better off doubling the number of wheels under me.  Let me clear about one thing, though...this is not an invective rant about motorcycle track days.  In fact, for the remainder of this article that will be the last time I use the word motorcycle.


What I came to realize was that there were many advantages to doing track days so it wasn't something I was just going to stop doing.  The track is a relatively safe place to learn the performance edges of your vehicle and--critically--the performance edges of you.  Safe, however, is most certainly a relative term.  It's safer to do this on a track than on the street only because there is no opposing traffic, medical and mechanical help is frequently waiting at track side and organizers establish sensible rules that help keep everybody relatively safe.  You can still bend your car and break the ever lovin' sin out of yourself, though.  A light pole is a light pole, the result of wrapping yourself around it at 100mph is the same whether or not you're on a track.  Do not for one second fool yourself into the belief that track days--two wheeled or four--are completely safe affairs; they are not.  The advantage to going fast on a track is that it involves less risk to yourself and to others, not that it is a 100% safe thing to do.

For me, one of the most significant advantages four-wheel track days comes from the fact that I'm really kind of a lazy person.  Cars are easier.  The night before the event all I have to do is toss my tool box, jack, jack-stands and helmet in the car.  At the track all I have to do is unload the trunk and I'm ready to go.  When the day is over I can be packed and out the front gate in about 5 minutes.  Easy-in/Easy-out way to flog a vehicle around and work the lead out of my foot for a while.  What's not to like about it?

Anyway, over the years I've gone through a succession of vehicles looking for the The One Car only to realize that I was never ever going to be happy with a do-it-all trackable daily driver.  The first car I tracked was an '02 WRX which developed a leaking head gasket during that track day.  I spent a few years track bombing in either a '99 Miata or an '06 WRX with reasonably good but still mixed results.  From there I bumped up to a Nissan 370Z but that never really worked out well.  The problem I found myself encountering was that my street-tuned cars ('02 WRX, stock 370Z) would completely fail me at the track and the cars I'd modified for track duty (99' Miata, '06 WRX) were not so good as daily-drivers.  (Weekend funmobiles, yes. Not daily drivers.)

This is how I ended up with two cars.  A sensible family sedan and something a bit less sensible.

Alright, enough of that crap already.  On to the E30 bit.

For about a year I flopped back and forth on what I wanted as a project car, something I could build into a fun weekend machine and track toy.  Believe me, my thought process covered everything from 1973 VW Square Backs to LS1 powered Camero SS's.  Through this fairly lengthy evolution and refinement process I came to a few conclusions about things that mattered to me...

• Something retro, old but fun and not a muscle car. (between 1970-1995)
  
• Something inexpensive to work on and buy parts for.
• Something with great community support and reasonable aftermarket.
• Something that had a history of being raced.
  
• Something that just looked bloody cool.

 That actually helped quite a bit and fairly quickly narrowed my choices down to Datsun 510s, Datsun Zs, BMWs 2002s, Toyota Celicas/Supras/Corollas and a few other odd-balls thrown in here and there.  From that set the Datsun 510s were most desirable to me, I spent a fair amount of effort trying to find one that wasn't an at-death's-door basket-case for a reasonable sum of money.  Because of they're already considered a classic they've become desirable and quite pricy in pretty much any condition.  Same with 2002s.  While very cool, the Toyota option misses the mark in a couple of areas so they were off the table.  I was getting ready bite the bullet and get a 510 anyway when something thoroughly fantastic happened...I went to a NASA HPDE event held during a race weekend at Thunderhill.

Having track time sprinkled in between actual races with actual race cars was an eye-opener.  And what my opened eyes fell in love with were the SpecE30 cars.  I'd not really considered them before that weekend but I had to admit they had that cool, retro 3-box shape I really liked with good lines and simple design.  Classic.  They looked to be pretty easy to work on and seemed to handle pretty well from what I saw on the track.  From all appearances they seemed to be a fantastically trackable platform for not much dosh.

What followed when I got home from that weekend was a flurry of Google searches which answered pretty much every question I could ever have had about the E30 in very short amount of time, cementing my desire to possess one as a project car.  They were retro cool, starting to become desirable, there are entire racing series devoted to the car, and have more community and after market support than any of the other vehicles I was looking at; I was sold.  I wanted an E30.  Specifically, I wanted a 325is, which I found and bought.

My 325is is, now, a much better car than the day I bought it.  Had I shopped around a but more I could have found one in better condition but I don't think I could have found with more soul.  There was something about the beaten, abused, and loved silver E30 that won my heart when I saw it on Craig's List.  It wasn't perfect but that's what I wanted, a not perfect car that I could freely wrench on.  Among all of the other basket case 325's I had browsed this one stood above the rest in a lot of ways, it was mechanically sound(ish) and the chassis was straight but it was in rough shape.  After buying it, while driving it home, I remember thinking to myself, ...what the hell have I gotten myself into?

At the outset I knew that the car wasn't ready for track duty so a fair bit of time was spent peeling back the layers to figure out was needed to get it ready, something shockingly horrifying turning up with at each layer.  Each time I fixed one of those issues I felt better about what I was doing with it with the car.  Each problem fixed was a personal investment in the damn thing and a stronger bond to BMW E30's in general.  By the time I'd gotten it to a point where it would pass a tech inspection I'd spent so much time digging around in it that I honestly wondered what the hell was wrong with me not have bought one ten years ago.

Having now spent one day and 120 miles caning the crap out of the car at Thunderhill with it giving not one fault, issue or reason for misgiving, I've solidly become one of those guys (Like the 2002 guys or the E21 guys or the E36 guys or the E46 guys...) who has fallen in love with with their generation of BMW, who believes that it is the best chassis that BMW have ever made regardless of evidence to the contrary because...

...because fuck you, E30's are the best BMW have ever made! =^_^=