It's a real project car. From the introductory article:
...we can keep the total budget–figure some mild mods are in the plans–to $10,000.
Photography by Tim Suddard
Was the project a success? That’s the question we always ask when the wrenches have stopped spinning and the brakes have cooled back to ambient after that last test session.
Here we turned a 15-year-old BMW 328i into a quick, comfortable and poised touring car. Total budget, including the car itself? Less than $15,000.
A comparable new version of this car, if it existed, would cost more than $50,000. And that car would not be available with a manual transmission. On top of that, it would have a 2.0-liter, four-cylinder engine that delivers less torque.
To step up to a new six-cylinder 3 Series–the M340i–would set you back a minimum of $60,000. Yes, it would be much faster with 400 horsepower and a zero-to-60 time of a little more than 4 seconds, but it wouldn’t have a stick shift. To get a manual box in a new 3 Series, you’ll be spending more than $80,000 on an M3 Competition.
We love this car. We can take it on a tour, run a track day or enter the daily grind. It has enough niceties to be relatively comfortable. It looks good, too, but doesn’t stand out so much that we have to worry about where we park it.
We’ve owned the car for almost a year, and other than the work we’ve done and an oil change, we have had zero issues. Nothing broke, nothing annoyed us.
Would we have done anything differently? We might rethink our suspension choice. While capable on track or on twisty back roads, the car does ride a bit rough on bad roads.
As most of our driving is of the spirited type, we’ll probably leave the car alone. If the car was being used mostly as a commuter, we might explore softer springs or just return to the stock springs and some Koni shocks.
So, how happy are we with this car? We’re considering selling our beloved 1991 BMW 318is project we did a few years back and replacing it with this one as our weekend/track day/tour car.
It's a real project car. From the introductory article:
...we can keep the total budget–figure some mild mods are in the plans–to $10,000.
About half the cost of a new Corolla. Sounds pretty good.
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