If you’ve been waiting for the world’s most exotic, insane, and expensive BMW E30 M3, look no further. It’s on eBay right now—and it will only cost you about as much as a Ferrari 458.
-First things first, though: Can we even call this an E30 M3? Under the hood sits a 5.7-liter V-10, a bored and stroked version of the E60 M5’s 5.0-liter V-10—said to be a Dinan-massaged unit—which we’re guessing makes well over 550 horsepower. (The M5 from which the engine came made 500 from the factory.) From the pictures, it’s clear that the creators of the car, Piper Motorsport, performed a lot of fabrication work to fit the M5’s V-10 engine and six-speed manual transmission into the E30’s diminutive chassis. In addition, the seller claims that both ends of the car’s structure were heavily modified to accept late-model, E90 3-series subframes and suspension bits.
-READ MORE: Our Original 1988 BMW M3 Road Test
- -From what we can tell, they spent as much time on the interior and exterior as they did on the drivetrain. The fender flares were cut and replaced with even wider pieces capable of housing more tire, and quad exhaust exits were integrated into the car’s rear bumper. The entire car was also treated to a respray in silver instead of its original black. Inside, the gauge cluster was replaced with a digital dash, and the stock seats have been swapped for aftermarket units as well. A full roll cage hides behind the A- and B-pillar trim—the rest is exposed aft of that—and the center console has been custom built to fit over the wider transmission tunnel. The tunnel also appears to contain switches to control many of the adjustable chassis systems Piper says are baked into the car, which it calls the Franken M3. Curb weight is claimed to be 3000 pounds, which, if true, is impressive considering all of the new hardware.
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Over the last few years, we’ve seen the prices of stock E30 M3s shoot through the roof, although they’re still nowhere near this car’s asking price. While this is one of the rarest and coolest E30 builds we’ve ever seen, is it really worth close to a quarter-million bucks? We suppose eBay will be the judge of that.
- -from Car and Driver Blog http://ift.tt/1PeTa5M
via Agya