- 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)
