- Ho, woo, huh, what, why?
Why are you doing the BMW e30?
(cat yowls)
I'm gonna be completely honest.
First off,
(glass breaks), (man shouts)
my feet are warm, it's hot in here.
But if we're gonna be completely honest,
if the subject or if the comment section isn't littered
with us being asked to do the G35, G37,
I might just have to press F for respects,
but when we decided to do the e36 just a hot minute ago
the world went, "Hold up bud!
"You went one generation too far."
Not to say that the e36 isn't a fantastic platform,
but it's missing...
The dreaminess of the e30. (stars tinkle)
And although the e36 has littered the high school
parking lots, the e30 has littered Cars & Coffee.
The e36 established itself as a car that can do it all
for everyone, but the e30 didn't need to do that
for anyone, ever!
This car in the right hands
is likely one of the most badass cars in the world
and no, I'm not just saying that
because we happen to have one.
I'm Alex, ALEX @ FI on the socials.
And today we're gonna be talking about the angry,
the toaster looking, the most perfect '80s car ever made!
The BMW 3 series e30.
(slow electronic music)
(engine roars) (tires squeal)
(slow electronic music)
The second generation 3 Series, dubbed BMW e30
was produced from 1980 to 1994.
Great year, that's when I was born.
And it was made back when BMW wasn't too sure who it was.
Going through a little bit of a high school movie dilemma
one might say.
The e30 was their best guess at attacking a new generation
BMW 3 Series after their first generation did pretty well.
The e30 would come in a coupe
(bell rings) Ay
body style, convertible body style, wagon body styles
and the typical sedan.
Even though the sedan is unloved to this day,
it still is a good one, all right?
Not everything has to be the coupe!
It's powered by anything possible
and had a million trims because...
(claps hands) BMW
Although there were a lot of similarities
between the initial generation and the e30,
a lot of love came from the upgraded suspension,
it had CAT assisted design technology
which helped it you know not look so...
'80s.
And some subtle differences that helped bring the design
crashing through the '80s like the slap bracelets
back in the day.
(slaps wrist)
You remember 'em and if you don't I'm sorry,
slap bracelets, best thing in the world.
Be kind, rewind.
And in case you're wondering?
Yes, the e30 does have a lot of trims and sub models.
It has the 316i, the 318, the 318i, the 360, the 318is,
the 320, the 323, the 323e, the 323es,
the M3 which is the best one, Evo 1 and Evo 2, m...
Some other one.
Even though BMW moved on past the e30 body style over time
the cult around this particular car
and generation never left.
Mostly everyone that liked European cars,
the e30 represented what would be called
The Ultimate Driving Machine.
The slogan of BMW.
It had nimble handling, driver oriented ergonomics.
You know when you buy a desk and it says ergonomics?
It had that.
It also helps that the 12 year production run
resulted in about two and a half million units
made over the entire process, across the world.
So they were pretty much everywhere.
The e30 had quite a little bit of a racing platform
one might say, it did pretty well.
Actually in all honesty it was one of the most successful
racing platforms within a generation of all time.
During the production run of the e30, M3, the car
would take home 1436 wins
in the course of 1628 days.
That's a lot of wins son!
It would take wins away from the more powerful Ford Sierra
Cosworth RS 5000, 500, the RS 500 and the 190 Cosworths.
(background equipment vibrates)
Calm down.
It would have only two small revisions during it's reign
and it's ring and would take away wins
from not only with different drivers but also just
just different automotive events as a whole.
The e30 would take home everything,
it would win touring car championships, Group A's
and about every other letter you could possibly imagine
because it was just that good.
Only had to have two slight revisions to win,
that's how good it was, all right?
BMW's have a few things to brag about, that's one of them.
The M3 trim on the e30 is what propelled
the stigma of the e30 chassis being a race car
and people were okay with that.
318i, it's a race car.
325i, race car!
320 (Alex shouts) race car!
It was pretty much all of 'em,
anything that you could possibly imagine
that had the four little headlights, it was a race car.
And that's why we love e30's,
it's also why most people buy them.
(Microsoft software start-up chimes)
They're more timeless than the e36,
they have the body lines that have that iconic old school
Euro car.
You can't help but smile when you're driving it around
because it's just a good car and it feels good.
You're cruisin', smiles.
You're drag racin', (Alex cheers), smiles.
You're driftin', smiles.
And it's all because you're sitting in that toaster lookin'
four headlight havin' BMW e30.
So you want a BMW e30?
Well buckle up there Roberto, there's gonna few things
you're gonna wanna know before you happen to have
one of these boxy little have a headlight things.
That is, has four.
There's a couple of things you're gonna need to know
before you pick up a e30.
By the way, runs a 17.45
fastest quarter mile in a stock e30, it's your boy.
That was me, tell Dakota I say, "Hi."
With the quarter mile time
of 17.45. - (Colleague laughs)
I'm so sick you you winning everything!
The e30 is a car that is by definition a LEGO car,
anything you think you can do to this car,
you can go and do to this car.
It handles pretty much everything relatively well.
Most people will more commonly swap motors in their e30
to get a little high performing, faster e30
than the standard baby four cylinders.
We still have the baby four cylinder
but if anybody has a motor they'd like to swap
and they'd be willing to give it up for free, we'll take it.
Modifications include everything from wide bodies,
turbo charger out of the headlight
because BMW did it better.
Coilovers, racing seats, LSD and all of the good stuff.
Pretty much you could make this thing fast as (beeps)
or showy as hell and didn't matter what you did
'cause it looked good.
The reason the car is a LEGO is because out of the gate
it was built to be a fun car.
A short wheel base, narrow driving path and rear wheel drive
meant that with power you could do
pretty much anything you want.
(drowned out by motor roaring) like a Hoonigan car,
you know and that's exactly what people did.
You'll see e30's at car shows, you'll see 'em at drags,
you'll see 'em at drift days, you'll see 'em at HPD,
you'll even see 'em at Auto-x eatin' up some cones.
Auto-x, Autocross, whatever
because you can do it all in an e30.
However, you can also fall into a little bit of that thing,
that little pit just like a little issue...
It's, it's, it happens every once in a while,
it's called the um, "Oh my (beeps) god, how did I actually
"get this piece of (beeps) to run?'
Because it happens, (claps hands)
e30's are insanely common and their modifications
are about as long as Jasper's excuses
for not coming to visit us.
It's a long list.
The problem with any car that can be heavily modified
and is heavily modified by the community
is that unless you are buying one
that's pretty much bone stock, you're gonna be spending
some serious amount of cash on getting the car
to what you want.
Not because the initial parts, but because actually,
you know keeping it alive, it's hard,
who knew it's 40 years old?
And if you don't have some serious cash
right out of the gate, it's probably gonna have
a few problems down the line.
If anyone's played around with it,
you kinda know what I'm talking about.
Pro tip here though, that if you're lookin' to buy an e30,
buy a bone stock one like we did
and then have someone like Corey
just slowly make it drivable.
But hey, it looks good.
The car can experience some rust issues and once it starts,
it needs to be handled immediately
otherwise it's gonna start just taking over your entire car
in about three minutes or so.
I don't know how rust jumps on that car, but when it does,
it does it so well,
makes me concerned.
The e30s work best at just about everything
you could imagine, street racer or a track setup,
well you can pretty much expect to see the e30
being on some NKs or Toyos.
Bang, show setup?
Any five spoke wheel out there is gonna look awesome.
Rotiforms look great on it, BBSs look great on it.
We have a BBS give away going on right now
you can check the description link below, you pick up a
t-shirt it gets you automatically entered to win.
Rotiforms look great on it, we have those at
fitmentindustries.com
and probably some good old Nankangs and OHTSUs
to get the job done.
You can pretty much do anything to these cars
and that's what makes them so much fun.
They're kinda like a Volkswagon GTI, except with the e30,
it just has little bit more of a sportier, faster,
race car-y look to it.
The original motors aren't massive powerplants
so most end up with an engine swap
to give it some more oomph.
From there you'll end up spending more money
than you ever though possible on a 40 year old BMW
that you snagged for $4000.
But you wanna know what?
It's okay because,
say it with me, it's an e30.
No matter what happens, doesn't matter what excuse you have
as long as you say, "Yeah, but it's an e30."
People they won't be able to argue with you
there's just gonna be no cha--
The BMW e30 is likely one of the most iconic cars
of the '80s and going into the '90s.
The M3 is coveted by collectors and way too expensive for us
to even talk about, even though I really wouldn't mind one.
So, is an e30 a great car?
Absolutely and probably one of the best ones you can get
out of the gate for not a ton of money
if you're looking to get into the Euro game.
It started off the bat looking incredible
and a few minor touches and you're pretty much gonna be set
for anything that you want.
So long as you get your wheels, tires and suspension
from fitmentindustries.com.
If you guys have an e30 or you want us to talk about
a specific car, maybe like the G35 or G37
let us know in the comments section below and of course guys
if you're looking for wheels, tires, suspension,
fitmentindustries.com.
Don't forget to subscribe and hit the bell button,
'cause if you haven't subscribed yet,
look at the great content that you're probably not watching.
I'm Alex from Fitment Industries, we'll see you later.
Peace. (gentle piano music)