My e21 323i...it begins here...
Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2013 9:56 pm
Hi all, to those of you that haven't had me badgering you yet I'm stew, I'm from Telford in the midlands and currently deployed to Afghanistan as a mechanical engineer to support the forces. My journey here started with a few childhood itches. I'm 25 and back when I was around 8 my dad owned a beautiful ford fiesta xr2 on an F plate in gunmetal grey.Over the past 8 years I've probably mentioned to him 5 or 6 times that one day I will own one!
Once deployed and without a car back home waiting for me (I sold my 55 plate a4 avant sline before I came out) I started thinking about which way I wanted to go when I got
home...the xr2 itch came back so I started to have a look around. I dropped on a beauty on eBay that had been completely rebuilt with a brand new engine 10k ago! Here's a few pics of what I was looking at.....
I spoke to the bloke selling it and agreed a price of 4 grand, the next day (when I was ready to pay the deposit) he kindly informed me he'd changed his mind and wanted to let the auction run! I was devastated! I really didn't think I stood a chance of winning it with such a poor Internet connection and with it already sitting on over £2500. With this in mind and 3 or 4 days left on the auction I stopped classing it as ''mine" and wondered what else I could buy for that sort of cash, then came my second boyhood itch!!!
I'd previously owned a cheap and cheerful red e30 318is and loved it! The old BMWs had always held a close place in my heart! With the e21 being the ultimate....
Then I met you guys!
As you do I browsed the net for e21s for sale knowing the best place to find a gem would be a forum! I signed up and looked through the classifieds to quickly drop on doms 323i! It looked like a beaut and had some serious history of 75k on the clock, full refurb in 2001 and documented proof of the work that was done with several bills, old mots and FSH! (not to mention already on coilies)i rang him within 15 minutes of seeing the add and as they say the rest was history! A deposit was transferred and I made arrangements for a good friend of mine to travel down to pick it up for me! This was all done before the auction on the xr2 ended, turns out it only made just over 3k and I didn't even place a bid
Here she is...
I had to wait until payday so it wasn't collected until monday just gone. In the meantime, I got onto my local council and got my wonderful mother to apply for a garage on my behalf! Everything fell into place and the car was picked up Monday followed by the garage key at 7am Tuesday! Also during this time I started the standard procedure for me of looking at what I wanted to do with her....after pulling 200 or so photos of modified e21s I compiled a list!
A nice set of bbs rms
Some spacers for the front wheels
Some orange indis
Yellow headlamps with either hella front grills or singles if I could drop on them
Some chrome wing mirrors
Extra chrome trim
Quarter light windows
A full engine dress
Possibly a manual conversion
Remove front splitter and paint what's underneath colour coded with a black lip
And that's about it! Over the last few weeks I've done pretty well in all honesty! I've sourced some wheels and tyres and had them both collected by my trusty pals and had some fresh chrome bumpers, orange indis, and hella front grills all posted over to me too!
Tonight I also won the set of single front grills on eBay so I've got the choice
. All that's left to get for my first holiday back home is some wheel spacers!
So that's where we're at....it's sitting in a garage loaded with parts ready for my return on August 15th! It's booked in for a full detail on August 10th and I plan to fit as much as I can in my time at home! Wedged in around v and a Holiday to magga!
Watch this space!!! All comments good or bad are welcome and I look forward to getting it to where I want it to be and getting to know all you guys along the way!
Once deployed and without a car back home waiting for me (I sold my 55 plate a4 avant sline before I came out) I started thinking about which way I wanted to go when I got
home...the xr2 itch came back so I started to have a look around. I dropped on a beauty on eBay that had been completely rebuilt with a brand new engine 10k ago! Here's a few pics of what I was looking at.....
I spoke to the bloke selling it and agreed a price of 4 grand, the next day (when I was ready to pay the deposit) he kindly informed me he'd changed his mind and wanted to let the auction run! I was devastated! I really didn't think I stood a chance of winning it with such a poor Internet connection and with it already sitting on over £2500. With this in mind and 3 or 4 days left on the auction I stopped classing it as ''mine" and wondered what else I could buy for that sort of cash, then came my second boyhood itch!!!
I'd previously owned a cheap and cheerful red e30 318is and loved it! The old BMWs had always held a close place in my heart! With the e21 being the ultimate....
Then I met you guys!
As you do I browsed the net for e21s for sale knowing the best place to find a gem would be a forum! I signed up and looked through the classifieds to quickly drop on doms 323i! It looked like a beaut and had some serious history of 75k on the clock, full refurb in 2001 and documented proof of the work that was done with several bills, old mots and FSH! (not to mention already on coilies)i rang him within 15 minutes of seeing the add and as they say the rest was history! A deposit was transferred and I made arrangements for a good friend of mine to travel down to pick it up for me! This was all done before the auction on the xr2 ended, turns out it only made just over 3k and I didn't even place a bid
Here she is...
I had to wait until payday so it wasn't collected until monday just gone. In the meantime, I got onto my local council and got my wonderful mother to apply for a garage on my behalf! Everything fell into place and the car was picked up Monday followed by the garage key at 7am Tuesday! Also during this time I started the standard procedure for me of looking at what I wanted to do with her....after pulling 200 or so photos of modified e21s I compiled a list!
A nice set of bbs rms
Some spacers for the front wheels
Some orange indis
Yellow headlamps with either hella front grills or singles if I could drop on them
Some chrome wing mirrors
Extra chrome trim
Quarter light windows
A full engine dress
Possibly a manual conversion
Remove front splitter and paint what's underneath colour coded with a black lip
And that's about it! Over the last few weeks I've done pretty well in all honesty! I've sourced some wheels and tyres and had them both collected by my trusty pals and had some fresh chrome bumpers, orange indis, and hella front grills all posted over to me too!
Tonight I also won the set of single front grills on eBay so I've got the choice
. All that's left to get for my first holiday back home is some wheel spacers!So that's where we're at....it's sitting in a garage loaded with parts ready for my return on August 15th! It's booked in for a full detail on August 10th and I plan to fit as much as I can in my time at home! Wedged in around v and a Holiday to magga!
Watch this space!!! All comments good or bad are welcome and I look forward to getting it to where I want it to be and getting to know all you guys along the way!
