Our friends at Classicheroes.co.uk are the kind of people you’d love to know. They are BMW specialists in the UK and have access to an enormous amount of rare and important BMWs. In short they restore and sell pristine examples of the cars we all love. But the best part? They hate seeing them sit still.
Because of that they’ve started a series and asked us if we’d be so kind to share them with our readers. We can’t think of a better idea.
So with that said here’s the first in the series; the legendary BMW E30 M3. Enjoy.
GQ columnist (and one of this authors favorite authors) Jamie Kitman recently wrote a piece on what he has termed the ‘slow-car movement’. It’s an idea that takes some of the principles of the slow food movement and translates them into what many of us have been doing for years; driving our asses off in well worn (barely) vintage cars. It’s a simple concept and one I can articulate very well within my own garage.
Compare my ’88 535is to the new 535i for instance. Even with a manual and sports package the modern 5er doesn’t stand a chance in getting my attention if I want to actually drive. But if I simply want to be transported in effortless style with technology catering to my every whim I’d choose the 2011 5 Series. The difference comes down to involvement in the car and in the process of driving. There is little question that the new 5 Series is faster in every way imaginable. It’s safer, it stops better (way better) and will carry four in a level of comfort not even imagined in 1988. It is a better car in all the modern ways of measuring success.
Looks like the battle for what ///M stands for continues on. Edmunds Inside Line contrasts the original ///M3 to what is currently offered in dealer showrooms. Is it even fair to compare two cars that are separated by 25 years? Bluetooth, cell phones and the like were not even things most people could fathom let alone require- Marty McFly was busy flying back in time when the original E30 M was made, today that movie series would more than likely never be produced but it is classic.
There is poise and fluency to this car that the years have not diminished. The chassis responses are so beautifully judged that a rhythm comes naturally to your driving. So many modern sports cars demand a point-and-squirt technique, because their performance is so colossal relative to the confines of the road. The E30 is not like that. It encourages you to think about driving again and then it responds with an enviable repertoire of skills.
The full article is well worth the read over at Edmunds
Ben Barry from British automotive magazine Car had a chance to do some back to back laps in every generation of M3 ever made at the Ascari test drive at a recent press event. As you’d expect (if you’ve ever read Car or Mr. Barry) his conclusions are nuanced and quite interesting. Here are a few excerpts:
I started with the E30 Sport Evo, a black one with just 7000km. Yes, it feels slow these days, the four-cylinder engine is a bit coarse, and that dog-leg gearbox takes some getting used to, but the steering is superb and – the best bit – the front end just goes where you point it. No understeer, no sense of weight pulling you wide of the apex. It just points and points and points until you ask to much of it and, eventually – through momentum rather than power – it oversteers.
Lovely car, the Sport Evo, and you can understand why us hacks slated its bigger, softer successor – the E36 – when it appeared in the early ’90s. But I’m fond of these cars – I’ve had two, the 3.0-litre coupe that I still own, and a 3.2-litre saloon – and it was a treat to drive a virtually factory fresh Daytona Violet 3.0-litre coupe and compare it with my leggy 3.0-litre that I’ve long ago converted into a trackday toy.
This past Memorial Day weekend was a great time to take in local racing events as many chapters of the BMWCCA and NASA held sanctioned racing events. When posed with the dilemma of attending the Grand AM race at Lime Rock Park or to take in the grassroots effort of the Spec E30 NASA series we opted for the later. While Grand Am is a fantastic series with tons of BMW involvement and an event well worth attending we felt that supporting our friends over at the Axis of Oversteer as they campaign two E30s to be more significant to all the would be racers and BMW fans out there.
The Spec E30 Series is a national racing series that is is a competitive, fun, safe, affordable racing series, focused on road racing with limited modifications and specified required components. This series really showcases the driver’s skills rather than just who can tune the best car. It is a great way for individuals to enter racing, more specifically BMW racing. Spec E30 is racing on a different level, it harkens back to a time when racers wrenched on their own cars, the last weeks pay was in a set of tires- all for the thrill of the race and for knowing that no one else was responsible for placing, not the mechanic, the tire compound or the crew chief. Much of today’s racing world is big money, big teams and big sponsors, grassroots racing like Spec E30 is a different feel, it is real with real people just doing something they love and we respect that a great deal.
For the most part E30 Spec racing is racing stock E30s with safety modifications- full cages, fire suppression and the like with other minor tweaks such as camber plates and Toyo RA-1, size 205/55/14 or 205/50/15 tires being used. For the full list of rules and regulations visit the official SpecE30 site.
The Axis of Oversteer boys showed the rest of the field how it is done at New Jersey Motorsports Park. On Saturday Pete Thibault took the checkered flag first and Matt Russell was just behind him in third place. On Sunday the driver’s rolls reversed a bit, Matt took home the checkered first though finishing with notable damage he acquired from some shrapnel (thanks to someone’s motor blowing), and Pete was in a not so distant second place. The team did a great job racing and enjoying themselves during the weekend- and that is what is all about, having a good time with BMWs. When it comes to racing looks don’t matter and by the end of the weekend these cars took some serious abuse.
Official Release: She sits in a 1987 open-top BMW 3 Series Convertible, authentically dressed in an eighties-style Bordeaux-coloured dress, her hair down and put into perfect shape by a hair specialist. She is slightly nervous before the “test drive”: “I’m a little on edge because I’m not sure exactly what’s going to happen with all this wind. But BMW has assured me that it’s all safe.” The huge rotor of the wind tunnel slowly starts to turn, from the control centre you can see a gentle breath of air slowly but surely developing into a stiff breeze at 60 km/h. After this windy test drive, the result is clear: the hairstylist on the set is not too happy since the only thing the tousled mane of model and TV presenter Sylvie van der Vaart would be good for is an eighties music video.
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We believe in the old school BMW ownership experience. We believe in garage nights with a six pack and some friends. We believe in 2002s, in E30 M3s and E34 540s with the 6 speed. We believe in progress in both design and engineering but we haven't lost sight of what made the brand and its products great all those years ago. And yes, we believe in the manual transmission.
We long for the days of the wave and for the days of roll-up windows. Yet we love the gadgets on the inside and the xenons on the outside.
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Sections: //M3\\, E30 3 Series, Video Sep 28th, 2010 5 Comments 
