AN E30 M3 WAGON BUILT FROM SCRATCH

[bmw3s]

In my view, one of the coolest things you can with an automobile is building it into something that could have been done from the factory but wasn’t. Fitting with this theme we have an incredible BMW that’s currently up for auction over on Ebay Motors.

What you are looking at is essentially an E30 BMW M3 Wagon, or M3 Touring in BMWspeak. BMW never produced a car like this of course, but that didn’t stop a BMW specialty shop out of Maplewood, New Jersey from creating their own “what if” version of the car.

The project began with a standard E30 Touring that needed a bit of restoration, but that was just part of the equation. Building your own E30 M3 Wagon is a bit more complicated than just ordering some afternarket parts and throwing them on.

In this case, a wrecked E30 M3 race car was sourced with its body parts to be given a second life as part of the wagon build.

The parts that couldn’t be used from the donor car were a mix of new BMW OEM parts and others that were custom fabricated.

Here’s a view of the M3′s signature wide fenders being worked on to the Touring body.

Getting the coupe’s fenders to fit properly with the rear doors doesn’t look like an easy task, but these guys pulled it off very well. You can see that the door handles have been relocated higher to make them functional.

As the bodywork continues, the car begins to look more and more like the E30 M3 Touring that never was.

With the paint and bodywork complete the car really comes to life. According to the ad, the only real stock parts remaining are the side windows.

Once the car had been made to look like an M3, the powertrain had to be updated to match. The engine is an S50B30 from a European-spec E36 M3 mated to a 5-speed transmission with a 3:46 LSD in the rear.

The engine bay has also been tucked and shaved for an extra clean look.

Naturally, the suspension and brakes were upgraded as well – and the set of 17″ BBS Style 5 wheels are pretty much the perfect match for this build.

Among the custom work done in the interior are seats done in cork leather, custom instruments and a fully upgraded audio system.

The end result is a car that is literally one of a kind. It looks great, it performs well, and is as unique as it gets.


-Mike