It’s February, and I am on vacation. Last week I loaded the dogs into my 1990 Volkswagen Vanagon Carat and slowly made my way from Colorado to Florida. You get nowhere fast in a Vanagon; I set the cruise control at 3,600 rpm, which gives me about 60 miles per hour indicated, and settled into the right lane of the highway to watch the world go by. This is completely opposite from my normal driving style, which I would describe as courteous, yet expeditious. The Vanagon sets its own pace, forcing me to slow down from the frenzied cadence at which I normally live my life. It’s amazing what a difference that can make to one’s perspective—moving slightly out of sync with normal life to view it from the outside—all while looking out at the wide open plains of Kansas.
Many spiritual awakenings later, I found myself still somehow in Kansas—but the great thing about the Vanagon is that when you are tired, you can just pull over, fold out the bed, and go to sleep.
The dogs and I found an empty corner of a vacant rest area and enjoyed a night sky painted with more stars than are possible to comprehend. Over the next three days, the great plains of Kansas gave way to the flat-water lakes of Eastern Oklahoma, the Ozark hill country of Arkansas, lush forests of Mississippi and Alabama, and the palm trees and turquoise water of Southern Florida. My wife, who was smart enough to fly, met us at the airport, but she still had to endure the aroma of a grown man and two dogs living in a van for the previous four days.
Our vacation agenda was to live the beach life for the next two weeks, but I did have a BMW excursion up my sleeve. A strategically scheduled spa appointment for my wife gave me a window to head north to Palm Beach to meet a trio of E30 enthusiasts.
The point of the trip was actually to compare my brother’s first-generation Acura NSX with an E30 M3. These are vastly different cars, but each has appreciated over the last few years to a similar price point. The E30 M3 belongs to a gentleman named Randy, and was the star of much Internet fame when he parked it in his living room last October to protect it from Hurricane Matthew.
I met Randy through my friend Keith, to whom I sold a nearly perfect Japanese domestic-market 1990 325i M Tech II last year. And George completed the trio with his S52-swapped 1990 325iS. Randy, Keith, and George all work in the aerospace industry; they are members of a group called Florida E30s. There were stark differences between their E30s, but they were good examples of the variety that can be had in the E30 world.
Randy’s 1988 M3 is a stunning example in Salmon Silver over black leather. He purchased it eight years ago, before E30 M3 values went stratospheric, and has used it as a daily driver ever since. Being a daily driver, it does have some imperfections, but some of my favorite E30s have been imperfect examples.
Randy is living the dream of E30 M3 ownership. He gets to enjoy his M3 every day without the pause that someone who paid current market prices might have on a rainy day. Randy clearly loves his car, too—he parks it in his living room! Some of his mild modifications include Recaro SRD seats, an Evo 2 front spoiler, the M Tech 2 steering wheel, Eibach lowering springs, and E39 Style 32 wheels. I’m lukewarm on the Style 32s, but they do work with the color.
Aside from Henna Red, Salmon Silver is my favorite E30 M3 color. It looks exceptional in any lighting, and it accentuates the touring-car-racing-derived lines of BMW’s original M3. See those iconic lines in person, and you can’t help but recognize that the M3 is special. Everything from the flared fenders and sealed hood gaps to the bump above the C pillar that channels air into the raised trunk lid and rear wing has a purpose: winning touring-car races, which the M3 did with great success. There simply is nothing else like an E30 M3. I can’t help but smile at the image of Randy sleeping on his couch next to it during hurricane season.
Sit down in the Recaro SRD seat, start up the S14 engine with a hint of throttle, and the road becomes your playground. The S14 is laughably devoid of torque in the low-rpm range, but it revs freely to a soundtrack that only the high-strung S14 can make.
Having spent more hours than I can count behind the wheel of M20-powered E30s, I can attest that the S14 is a completely different animal. Rowing through the gears to the redline with your hair on fire brings out your inner race-car driver in spades, yet without achieving the felonious speeds that you might in one of the E30’s more powerful successors. When the road gets less straight—this is Florida, so there aren’t many turns—there is no need to slow down; just set up your line, give it a light brush of brake, turn in, and throttle-steer through the exit. The M3 is so good because it communicates, as every E30 does, but with a better suspension, better brakes, and the sense of prominence that only comes from a World Touring Car Championship winner.
Keith’s 1990 Japanese domestic-market (JDM) 325i M Tech II was the next car in line. I knew this car well, because I imported it from Japan and sold it to him a year ago. With only 40,000 kilometers (24,000 miles) on the clock when it rolled off the boat, it was the most perfect E30 I had ever seen. A year later, Keith has changed only a few things; he traded the stock wheels for a set of seventeen-inch Team Dynamics wheels and added H&R race springs with Bilstein shocks. The M Tech II package was market-specific, with the JDM market being based on the European market; the standard kit featured the M Tech II body kit, dead pedal, door-sill badges, seat badges, steering wheel, M Sport suspension (15 mm lower than stock), limited-slip differential, anthracite headliner (under a slick-top roof), and Shadowline trim.
Because it was a Euro-market car, it also got “smiley” projector headlights with city lights and an adjustable height control—and that works. JDM M Tech II E30s came in two-tone color schemes—BMW called it bi-color—with this example being Diamond Schwarz over dark gray. It also had JDM hallmarks such as aftermarket Recaro seats and an automatic gearbox. The seats are closely color-matched and feature webbing in the headrest, a detail I absolutely love. The automatic gearbox would be a letdown, except that it is the drive-mode-selectable electro-hydraulic unit that we never got in the U.S.
Take it for a drive and the most striking impression is how tight everything is. Keith’s car doesn’t have any of the clunks and rattles that nearly every E30 does; it is the closest thing to a time-capsule E30 I have ever driven. The suspension, steering, transmission shifts—even the way the door closes—are all perfectly crisp. I never got to experience a showroom-new E30, but Keith’s car is nearly that. The M20 engine pulls fantastically, with a much broader torque curve than the M3’s S14. Put the drive-mode selector in S for Sport, and the electro-hydraulic gearbox does an excellent job of keeping the rpms in the power band. It will even hold them on redline and downshift prematurely when necessary. For 1980s technology, it is quite amazing. Keith will eventually manual-swap this car, but the fact that he hasn’t done it yet is a testament to how good that gearbox is.
The H&R Bilstein combination is one that I use often on my own E30s, but I think Keith should have left the factory M Sport suspension in place. It was the perfect balance between compliance and cornering performance; all E30s should have come with it. I also liked the way it looked and rode better with the stock fourteen-inch wheels, but the gunmetal Team Dynamic wheels do paint an aggressive picture. Keith is going to replace them with some period-correct AC Schnitzer wheels in short order. The condition and options make this E30 every bit as special as its Motorsport brethren—and arguably more rare.
Of the three E30s, George’s Alpine White 1990 325iS is the one with the volume turned up to eleven. I experienced this quite literally as I was hanging out of his trunk to photograph rolling shots of the M3 and the NSX; my ears are still ringing from being so close to the business end of a three-inch custom exhaust mated to Raceland headers.
Those exhaust gases were being exhaled from an S52 engine donated from a 1997 M3. George converted it to OBD I with an S50 manifold and a Turner performance chip. One of my barometers for a proper engine swap is whether the air-conditioning is functional, because it is a meticulous and time-consuming job to do. George’s air-conditioning not only worked—a Florida necessity—but it had lines wrapped in gold to protect them from the headers a few inches away.
That gold was a metaphor for the attention to detail George paid to the rest of the car. So many engine-swapped E30s are cobbled together in varying degrees of completion, while George’s is the finished product. The fresh Alpine White paint was accented by gold BBS RS wheels (with turbo fans), “Frenchie” yellow projector headlights, BMW Motorsport door handles, a BMW CCA 25/40 Motorsport tribute badge, and Motorsport cloisonné hood and trunk emblems. Inside, a matching cloisonné steering-wheel emblem continues the detail-oriented theme. It is fitted to a custom flat-bottom M Tech I steering wheel. To the right a digital vent gauge with four data parameters shows engine health. Below that, a Condor weighted shift knob—the same one I run in my M coupe—is fitted between Recaro LS seats with red Motorsport seatbelts to hold you in place, which is a good thing, because this E30 is a monster.
A properly fitted and tuned S52 engine in an E30 is something that every BMW enthusiast should experience. George routed power through the E36 ZF gearbox and a 3:73 limited-slip differential—short gearing for such a swap. The result is brutal acceleration and the opportunity for endless hooliganism, which I might have considered if not for the nervous expression George had as I drove off in his car. In a race, this E30 would easily beat my brother’s NSX off the line, although I suspect that the NSX would eventually catch it. After a few minutes it reminded me most of my Z3 M coupe, except that it was easier to access its limits, more comfortable, and had much better visibility. The combination of power with the communicative nature of the E30 made it a pure joy to drive, but George’s attention to detail was the most lasting impression I have of his E30.
As the sun set, we lined up the three E30s in front of a pair of Marine CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters with my brother’s NSX lurking in the background like a shark stalking its prey. I was glad to have the opportunity to compare the M3 and the NSX—look for that story in the pages of Roundel—and to meet the trio of Florida E30s-owners and drive their cars. Each car was as unique as its owner, and an example of how different, yet similar a trio E30s can be.—Alex McCulloch
