1988 E30 325ic Make-over

This poor old girl came to my attention when one of our locals enthusiasts/shop owners(Reggie Stewart of Reggies Motorworks) asked me if I was interested in a buying a nearly complete parts vehicle. I was hesitant when I first saw it, but the more I thought about it, the better the deal seemed. So I decided to buy it from him. Here was the catch, He had just sold me the wheels that were on it that I needed for a different E30 of mine, so I had to come back another day so I could put wheels on it in order to take it home. He was nice enough to let me throw the wheels on while the car was still on the lift though.


Here's what it looked like when I went to pick it up:

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Once I got her home, then work began. I had already purchased some stuff from Reggie to get the ball rolling for it. Here it was, "monster-trucking", when I got home. Notice the nice plastic seat cover!!

Here it was with just the rear lowering springs installed. Looks like it was carrying about 800lbs of sand in the trunk.

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Here it is with the lowering springs on front and rear. They are Apex Springs that are the lowest ones they offer. The wheels are BBS RC050's. 17x8 ET20. With the current setup, they are actually at ET0. Tires are 205/40/17's

Since the car was so low now, there was a bit of rubbing happening. So much so that the car would stop by itself without using the brakes! So I started doing a little fender rolling.. Then a little fender rolling turned into fender pulling, then fender pulling turned into fender reforming. I got a little carried away, but at least it clears now.... Sorta.

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BTW I started doing the bodywork once I got the fender forming done. Before anyone starts to complain about me taking a nice clean car and beating it up to then have to do body work to it, please know that this care was rough to start with and needed a lot of work anyways. That's why I decided to do the fender forming.

Here it is now with the Front lip on and also the plastic rear bumper swapped on.

First car I've had that I actually registered as a historic car. I was quite proud of that!

Now for what I feel is my biggest undertaking: Reupholstery! 

The interior that was in the car was terrible at best and needed a lot of work. I decided to change the interior color to black primarily with a few accents here and there for fun. The following pictures are pretty self explanatory as to what I've done. Please let it be known that I am cutting the material and sewing it all together myself on a 1970's single-head sewing machine. 

One last pic for fun!

This project ended up getting sold shortly after this picture to fund another project. Story of my life..