Sold 6/28/11 - Sold to a good new home that will bring it back to it's former glory. A very interesting read from the new owner:
Since I live so close, I decided to take some time and go check it out as well as have a nice long talk with the owner. Very nice older gentleman which was a surprise since I was expecting a street race loving teen.
So what's the story on this car? The owner showed me pictures of the car when he bought it over 5 years ago and if you think this looked bad, it was unimagineably worse. Under-car neon lights, crazy body kit, etc. It was originally owned(leased) by the son of a wealthy middle eastern man. After dropping a ridiculous amount of money into the car, was eventually sold off and ended up at auction where it was declared "frame damaged". After picking the car up, and concerned about the potential structural damage, the owner had the car looked at by Fall-Line Motorsports. With the exception of a horribly rich ecu tune, the car checked out clean with no visible signs of actual frame damage or subframe issues.
The nitrous was removed, the chip was replaced with a Dinan unit and the RMS supercharger was onced over and had it's belts replaced. Needless to say Fall-Line isn't cheap and the owner kept all the receipts for this initial service as well as subsequent oil changes and general service performed at Fall-Line.
How does it look in person? Not nearly as bad as it does in pictures. The Hamann HM2 wheels look surprisingly good and the car has no dings or scrapes to speak of. The rear bumper gap on the driver side is a little off but in general the car looks very good.
How does it drive? Great. No hiccups at all on or off throttle, or while cruising...oh and it's fast. Very fast. I just sold my e92 M3 last week and the butt dyno says this mcoupe blows it away. The RMS/vortech charger is pretty loud (which is to be expected) but delivers power smoothly and lots of it. Good stuff.
So, to make an already long story short, after seeing the car in person, and watching the recent ebay auction end at a measly $13,000, I made an offer and am now the (semi)proud owner of the car. Although I took a gamble on the condition of the unibody, this coupe is in exceptional condition with extremely low miles and everything in it's history points to the auction house assigning the car frame damage to avoid arbitration or due to suspension modifications which is common practice.
The plan is to sell off some of the "tasteful" mods and restore the car back to its former unicorn glory. Happy to be back in Z3MC-land and to have the opportunity to bring a somewhat rare car back from the dark side of bad taste :)
6/27/11 Update - Auction ended with a high bid of just $13,100.38 which did not meet the reserve.
6/20/11 Update - It's back on Ebay! The lowest buy-it-now it had was $21,800, so I assume the reserve is in that neighborhood.
11/22/10 Update - Ebay Auction ended and it doesn't look like it even got any offers this round.
11/16/10 Update - Relisted on Ebay with a buy it now or best offer back up to $24,888. I'd assume a best offer of the previously asked $21,800 would take it.
11/8/10 Update - Ebay auction ended with no takers. He added a little more to the description at the end of the auction that I have added above.
11/1/10 Update - Relisted on Ebay with a buy-it-now of just $21,800. I think it has become a very good deal.
10/27/10 Update - Auction ended with no apparent sale. He appears to have dropped the buy-it-now to $22,800 at the end of the auction. He received offers of $23,500 and $22,799 during the auction that both expired which is weird.
10/23/10 Update - Buy-it-now price was dropped to $23,900. It's sad, but I can't help but thing this would have sold by now if it were stock.
10/20/10 Update - Relisted on Ebay with a buy-it-now of $24,500
10/19/10 Update - Ebay auction ended with a high bid of just $16,800 which I know is far below the reserve.
10/12/10 Update - Relisted on Ebay with no buy-it-now. I don't know what the reserve is.
10/4/10 Update - Ebay auction ended with no action on the $25,000 buy-it-now
9/27/10 Update - Relisted on Ebay with a buy-it-now lowered to $25,000.
9/25/10 Update - Appears to have lowered the buy-it-now to $26,000 from $28,500 at the end of the auction. He got an offer of $26,000 yesterday, but it appears to have expired. I'm guessing it may have sold at $26,000 but I'll keep an eye on it.
9/18/10 Update - Relisted on Ebay with a buy-it-now of $28,500
9/15/10 Update - The auction ended with a high bid of $20,100 which did not meet the reserve.
This is an interesting coupe. It's low mileage, alpine white over estoril blue (1 of 9), and very modified. The vehicle history report shows it sold at auction with "frame damage" which is kind of scary. Most of the modifications are nice, but the aesthetic ones will probably hurt rather than help the sale. I'm personnally not a fan of any of the Hamann modifications (wheels, mirrors and side gills). I'm curious to see what he wants for it and what Ebay bidders are willing to pay for it.