M42club.com - Home of the BMW E30/E36 318i/iS
DISCUSSION => Exterior => Topic started by: BlueBMW on April 11, 2010, 10:15:15 AM
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I'm not typically a fan of re-badging cars to make them seem like they're something they're not. For example, I'm not going to put an M3 badge on the trunk lid of my 318is... but I do find that some M parts can look attractive and offer some good function too.
So far I have an M tech II steering wheel and an M shift knob. The steering wheel feels great compared to the stock airbag wheel and the shift knob shortens the throw and feels good over the stock knob. And of course they look awesome! I have thought of another small cosmetic detail I had thought of doing and I figured I'd bounce it off you guys to see if it would be neat or lame.
The idea.. E30 M3s have the M3 badge on their front drivers grille... What if one was to take an M badge, a "4" from a 740il badge, and a "2" from a 325, 525, whatever... and put them together to make an "M42" badge, glue them to a small black plate and attach it to the grille ala M3. Yay? Nay? Opinions? I suppose the trick would be to finding numbers and an M badge of the same height and proportions, but it might be possible.
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If you like it - go for it.
I'm not sure it would be that big a deal for the M to be smaller than the 42. Which it will be if you use numbers from the trunk. The bigger trick will be extending the little M3 plaque to fit the numbers. The chrome M and 3 are glued on, but the M-stripes are painted directly on the plate. If you are concerned about the letters and numbers matching up you could try to find the front plate for a very early 524td. Bigger plaque and the numbers should be pretty close in size to the M. I assume they are glued on like the M3 badge. I've never seen one of those early model plaques up close.
In the interest of full disclosure I should note that I've got just the tricolor stripes from the M3 badge on the front of my 318is - in reference to the complete M3 suspension it rides on. The M and 3 were knocked off in the fairly violent accident that made the suspension available for a transplant.
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I have seen this done before with the m42 badge on the grill. Just can't remember where. It looked fine.
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I've sourced a 524td badge off a junk car of my buddies, now I just need to find a cheap "M" Anyone here interested in a big lot of 524td stuff? My friend has 3 cars and several motors etc that he's looking to sell as one big lot. You might be able to shuffle all the parts together and get one good running car lol.
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...this may be of help? If you scroll down through the pics you'll see a fellow M42'er did a similar badge...a couple questions were asked about where he got it...
http://m42club.com/forums/showthread.php?p=55316#post55316
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The 524td bad is too large to work on the front grille. What I've looking into now is using an M3 keychain for the M, and then I've found chrome numbers online for about $3 each that are the same height. I'll give it a shot and see what happens.