Well guys, I've been hitting this board pretty hard. I decided a 1991 318is was for me, so I started watching eBay and Craigslist. After about 6 months of looking and losing a couple eBay auctions after they got WAY too expensive I jumped on this one. It's a one owner and the lot in Long Island, NY was asking $2995. The interior is as new except for a small portion of piping gone from the drivers seat bolster where you'd expect. Other than that it really looks fantastic. It has a few rust spots here and there that I'm having a body shop work on, but other than that it's a great little car. 130k on the clock.
So I was in Las Vegas on a company function (EMC World for any techno-geeks out there) and decided to fly from Las Vegas to NY, stay overnight then get the car on a Thursday morning, then drive it home to Fort Worth (1700 miles.) Adding to the excitement was the fact that the little dealer (operating out of a snow cone stand) didn't do temp tags, so he put a piece of brown cardboard on the car that just said 'LOST PLATE.' Yep. I drove 1700 miles past at least 20 highway patrol officers in a car with no inspection, no registration and not a license plate to be found
Didn't get pulled over once, but I was relatively low key and stealthy. Oh and the front shocks were shot as well as the control arms so it bounced all over the road on any imperfections. Luckily for me the roads were all great coming home and I did it in 27 hours. Oh and I should mention that somehow I managed to get 32mpg on the drive home. In an out of tune 17 year old car. I was very pleasantly surprised.
So anyways, I'm in my very early 30's, and am a big BMW fan. I worked hard to buy my first 325i in 2001, then I bought a CPO 2000 M Coupe shortly after (Alpine White.) Sold it for a 2003 325i when my second kiddo came, and then recently bought a 2006 Z4 M Roadster which is an absolute blast - faster than the M3 and really well balance on the track (Motorsport Ranch and Texas World Speedway for the Texans.) I had an FJ Cruiser and an Acura TL in between there somewhere but they don't count. I recently bought my wife an X5 which she definitely loves and I feel good about carrying the kids in it cause the thing is a friggin' tank. I'm always surprised at how heavy the doors are on the thing (and the 18mpg I get shows it.)
Oh and last but not least before the shots, I am participating in this year's 24 Hours of Lemons race in Houston. We have built a fully caged and HANS'd 1991 Acura Integra. It's great having a good friend who owns an import salvage yard
So here's a couple pictures. Here is the car with the fancy cardboard license plate on it. This is sitting at a tire shop in Island Park, NY. I took it there immediately after picking it up to have a set up Yokahama sport tires put on that I had pre-ordered.
And here it is today, a few weeks after I picked it up. I've had full Bilstein shocks and springs installed, new control arms with M3 offset bushings, I deleted the throttle body heaters, had a full exhaust installed from the header back with high flow cat, installed a Mark D chip, and just yesterday replaced all speaker wiring and installed a new Alpine head unit with iPod control. Oh and I also did a new IS lip yesterday - that's what I was waiting for before posting any pics. You know how it is!
And here's my other toy (and my wife's kid mover.) I'll tell you what, after spending time in the M the 318is feels like a doggggg, but I love it anyways.
So that's about it for me. I appreciate you guys' advice and assistance around here!
Adam
Topic: Proper introduction and pictures in order! (Read 5492 times)