Want!

You'd be better off with a nice 325i, unless you really like having to rev the bollocks off the little M42 lump /all the time/.

Mustard mitt, the 318iS has the best front spoiler of the lot, and comfy front seats.

i like them too, woman at work had a MINT 325 in grey and wanted 800 quid for it, wish i had 800 quid had no rust and full history! sadly no money at the time :(

I was alongside an early E39 today - N reg - must have been one of the very first of them. Got me thinking - wonder if they're coming down to sensible money, and are the ones worth having (I'm thinking 8 cylinders) likely to have any expensive jobs that could crop up at that age. and moderate to high miles (barring Nikasil, as that's a simple it is or it isn't scenario)??

E39s are BMW's W210.... with less rot, though.

Yet another car I got 'that' close to buying in the past.

Around 1995-1996, just like that one a 318is in red with the very German tartan seats. It was the M3 lite of its day.

I like them too.

Really? Less rot as in still some? I read that they're a bloody good car that was pretty hard to improve on with the E60.

Kind of a low point in terms of build and reliability, more than rot.

E39 is the one before the current one yea?

this one? My mates dad has had 3, they never rotted or went wrong. Started with a

525i, then another 525i, then a 530i M-Sport. He still has that. He had an M5 for a few days whilst his went for a service and small accident repair, as he was on good terms with the boss heh. That was an amazing piece of kit. The fact £12k will buy you a nice one, or under £10k for a leggy/tatty one, is just ludicrous. It was just ridiculously fast. The 530i had well over 200bhp, it was the later one, 260bhp or something? I dunno, but anyway, the M5 made it look like our diesel Fiat Doblo. The gears were just irrelevent, push foot down in any of them, at any revs, and you just launched for the horizon like a scalded hyena. If you dropped a few cogs and actually used all the power, it just seemed to defy physics, your idea of what something that big was capable of. And this was with 4 of us in, in complete comfort, and still not having to raise our voices to talk. It made overtaking just like, irrelevent, you had plenty of room, always [1]. Then, when parked in the cinema car park, it just looked purposeful, it didn't shout "I've got more power than a Ferrari 355", it just looked like a nice car.

Finding that pic, lead me to this nice little review as well heh :-) -

Dang an blast! Footnote escaped...

[1] Obviously this isn't actually true, just for the pedants and terminally stupid people that may end up reading this, please don't go get an M5 and just overtake when there is an\several oncoming vehicle(s) that are too close... The laws of time and space unfortunately do still apply.

I know everybody is raving about them and I looked at a few earlier this year but I can't say I was overly impressed. The ergonomics don't work for me that well and found the whole experience a bit underwhelming (and I generally like BMWs). That said, so far the only BMW 3-series I'd actually consider buying would be a non-chavved pre- Evo E36 M3. And I'd like some rocking horse poo with that while I'm at it.

Oddly I nearly bought a red one just like that in 1995 from a trader in Middlesbrough. I nearly bought a Celica then as well, the only trouble was I was earning next to f*ck all and insurance for them to stand outside my central 'Boro terraced house was just stupid :(

It's overpriced for a 318. You want the 320 at the very least. I'd have one.

No, it's not.

Take note that it's not a normal 318i. It's an iS. Which is a very different car.

You don't, not if you want an iS.

Advantages of the iS are that it's 140 bhp instead of the 129 of the

320i, has slightly stiffer suspension and very often the 'sport' seats (maybe always, can't remember). Slightly less nose heavy than a 6 pot, but nowhere near as smooth.

The 325i is far better though, a lot quicker, a lot quieter, a lot smoother and normally much better equipped. Lots of 325s have LSDs, whereas not a lot of iS's had them.

The iS was a failed Golf GTi rival - not as quick but a nice chassis.

The 320iS is a different kettle of fish, that's the real 'baby M3'.

RWD means it would appeal to me more than a Golf GTI given that they're now comparable prices for really nice examples.

Unfortunately, LHD only and much, much more expensive.

Dammit Vamp why didn't you tell me? I'm always, casually, on the lookout for a mint E30 325 (preferably with limited slip)

You'd probably have been better off trying to scrape the money together from somewhere until you could flog your E36....

Or just binning the E36 and dropping its engine into an E30. Common mod, and rather funky.

i know i know, actually didn't find out if she got rid of it or not, i might ask incase she hanged onto it.