Member stories: thosmith

Brief

One of our followers, a gent by the name of Thomas Smith, lives in a pretty cool place: Martha's Vineyard, an island off the coast of Massachusetts. Despite being reachable only by ferry, Tom made a very excellent find not too long ago in the form of a desirable project car: a BMW 325ix, of the E30 chassis family, in four-door form. This is the ultimate snow machine for a New Englander who doesn't want to buy into all that Quattro hype.

Tom found the E30 abandoned at a local mechanic's shop, where it had been sitting neglected for some time. Incredibly, it wasn't rusty underneath, or behind the IX-specific fender flares. In fact, it turned out to be a very solid car with loads of original paperwork inside going back to the original purchase order from a mainland dealership. Tom was pleased to find upon digging into the car that the engine had been previously rebuilt and upgraded with a Schrick performance camshaft! 

To date, he has it running off an external fuel source with a new gas tank waiting to go in. The driveshaft has to come out to do this, however, so he's paused for now until there's time to drop the shaft and install the rust-free tank. Can't wait to see how this one turns out!