I had intentions of doing a 24V install to the shell of a parts car I had stripped, but other garage projects were taking priority. When I was finally seeing daylight at the end of the tunnel, I started dreading the amount of work it was going to take to put the shell together. That's when this thread appeared:
http://www.m42club.com/forum/index.php?topic=17908.0There aren't many E30 318is' that pop up for sale in these here parts, so I thought it might be worth a look...the fact it was a slick top certainly made it all the more tempting.

Long story short...

Here's the worst of the body damage...a relatively soft hit by an inattentive SUV driver. The shell I spoke of earlier is a Diamond Swartz with all good sheet metal and plastics...

The tires have less than 5K miles on them and the wheels are in really good shape.

I'm going to try and save the fender simply because all the VIN numbers are present and there are no indication of previous repairs anywhere else on the car. The front valance is a little distorted and missing the lip. The fog lights were in the trunk, but not in the best of shape; I'm going to be installing fog deletes...


The A/C was converted to R-134, and along with a new radiator, the PO had new hoses, thermostat and t'stat housing installed. There was a K&N sticker on the airbox, but installed was an old, dirty OEM filter and a hand full of cherry pits. The MUTI was done recently, the TB boot was nice and pliable, and there was even a new fuse box cover!

Moving on to the interior...a Kenwood head unit with iPod adapter (Bonus: OEM radio WITH OEM connectors was stowed away in the trunk), analog clock (not hooked up), change tray, and leather wrapped OEM airbag wheel with matching parking brake handle and boot. Extra, extra bonus: Leather shift boot with ///M shift knob wrapped in...leather...and...a SSK as well.


The headliner has to be one of the nicest, cleanest ones I've ever seen.

Looks funny without a sunroof crank handle, huh?

The seats are in O-K condition and probably look better in pictures than in real life. I've seen worse, but I won't be keeping them as I have a near perfect set of black perforated covers to replace them.

The back seat top is split on both sides as shown here. Again, no problem. I have a damned near perfect black leather seat to throw in there. Except, I want a black perforated seat to match my fronts...hint, hint.

Like the change tray and cocoa mats, another period correct "option" installed is an OEM dead pedal. I forgot to take a picture of that...

Moving along to the trunk, we have a complete tool set. I had an extra 8/10mm wrench to throw in there, hence the slightly different look...

The liners were in excellent condition, as is the fairly new battery. Standing water in the left, rear quarter panel indicates new taillight seals are required and if that doesn't fix it, we'll continue with the usual suspects. (I had an extra antenna grommet and installed that immediately...unfortunately, we still have water intrusion).

Also stuffed in a bag of parts in the trunk was...

? I was pressed for time and didn't get a chance to see if the DME had any nice little surprises stashed away in there.

Just like the seller suspected, the fuel pump was DOA. I threw in an extra one I had on the shelf and she started right up!

I took it for a short spin and was quite happy with the total product. It sounds quite good as well...the seller didn't mention until I came to pick it up that it had a Super Sprint exhaust.


With the asking price the seller offered to throw in new shocks, control arms and hardware. Since it was all OEM and I already have a built suspension with too many other parts laying around to trip over, I passed on those and dickered the price down a little. Overall, I'm quite pleased and happy, happy, happy.
