Crazy M3 saloon project

[nlau1 0]

Hey guys,

 

Just thought I'd share this thread with you, I found it a while back and its a fantastic read for any petrolhead. As the title says, a guy bought an e46 saloon and an e46 M3 and decided to put them together! He used as many original BMW parts as possible during the build and theres plenty of pictures. Enjoy! :D

 

http://www.e46fanatics.com/forum/showth ... p?t=578901

[Danny B 0]

I got to page 15 and my eyes started to hurt :lol: .......so I jumped to the end - really cool some major skills and the guy has some balls !!

 

Its one thing taking apart a £3k corrado and fettling - its quite another messing with BMW of this worth :eek:

 

Thanks for the link.

[nlau1 0]

I got to page 15 and my eyes started to hurt :lol: .......so I jumped to the end - really cool some major skills and the guy has some balls !!

 

Its one thing taking apart a £3k corrado and fettling - its quite another messing with BMW of this worth :eek:

 

Thanks for the link.

 

It is an epic build and I agree with the serious balls comment!

[Abdul 0]

I remember following the first 15-20 pages or so when the project first begun but never bothered to check the end result. I must say, i think its a fair bit nicer than the coupe M3's. Dont know why, maybe its just because its different? Awesome build none the less...

 

So who's driven an E46 M3? What are they like?

[Jim 2]

Stunning! Such awesome attention to detail. And how fricking loaded must have been to do all that?!

[Danny B 0]

Stunning! Such awesome attention to detail. And how fricking loaded must have been to do all that?!

 

Exactly that was kind of my point as well.

 

End result looks kind of touring Car-esk with suck wide arches and negative camber !!

[nlau1 0]

Personally I wouldn't have had the CSL rear boot lid, but the rest of the car is awesome

[Danny B 0]

Personally I wouldn't have had the CSL rear boot lid, but the rest of the car is awesome

 

+ 1 ......but I think its nitpicking really :)

[dukest 0]

read it all over the course of today, amazing :salute: but at the same time, there are a few guys on here that have the skills to do the same i think :grin:

he said just taxing a 2nd hand imported M3 was going to cost something like $80k. I guess that he was probably working on the project costing half that excluding the M3 donor, so say $40k including the 318? i would guess that as his mates did some of the work means maybe $10k for labour (welding + paint) and he probably paid $15-20k for parts (excluding the S/C) and then $10k for the 318. a big project but as he said, a lot less than the $100k-200k for a brand new taxed car!

[nlau1 0]

The best bit is when he says he took it to Munich and the lead engineer responsible for the E46 M3 says that if BMW produced an E46 M3 saloon then it wouldn't have been much better than this car!

[CorradoVR6-Turbo 0]

all this to fiddle the high tax bracket...........ouch! still awesome work,loving it! 8)

[Danny B 0]

The best bit is when he says he took it to Munich and the lead engineer responsible for the E46 M3 says that if BMW produced an E46 M3 saloon then it wouldn't have been much better than this car!

 

something just occurred to me though, I thought BMW did produce an E46 M3 ........ :scratch:

 

EDIT : Just realised he did it to avoid the tax bracket of a new car - it took so long to read the thread by the time I got to the end I forgot the point of it :lol:

[nlau1 0]

Thats the E90 M3

 

The E46 M3 was the one before which came in Coupe and Cabriolet.

 

The current M3 (as in your picture) comes in saloon (E90), coupe (E92) and convertible (E93) although the saloon version is soon to be discontinued.

[Danny B 0]

Thats the E90 M3

 

The E46 M3 was the one before which came in Coupe and Cabriolet.

 

The current M3 (as in your picture) comes in saloon (E90), coupe (E92) and convertible (E93) although the saloon version is soon to be discontinued.

 

Blimmey I'm too confused :lol:

[big ben 10]

just looks like a M3 to me, or is that the point?

 

serious skills though and like the colour and stance he has got going on

[luke w 0]

That's the point, sort of. They never made a saloon version of the E46 so that's what he set out to do, make a saloon version of the M3 as if BMW had done it themselves.

 

Looks blooming lovely 8)

[nlau1 0]

just looks like a M3 to me, or is that the point?

 

serious skills though and like the colour and stance he has got going on

 

Yeah thats the point, he wanted an E46 M3 but the tax in Finland (is it?) is really high (works out at £250,000 for the car). So his plan was to use an M3 as a donor car and put everything into the 318i thus avoiding the import tax! And in the process I guess he thought, why not do a saloon version!

[Danny B 0]

just looks like a M3 to me, or is that the point?

 

serious skills though and like the colour and stance he has got going on

 

Brilliant love that :lol:

[Kevin Bacon 5]

I wasn't interested until I saw the last couple of pages of S/C'd goodness, loving that short runner too.....and a row of naked M throttle bodies always brightens a petrolhead's day :luvlove:

 

I wish they'd fit a VR6!! ITBs like those with a medium size plenum and a turbo would be utterly devastating.

[big ben 10]

just looks like a M3 to me, or is that the point?

 

serious skills though and like the colour and stance he has got going on

 

Brilliant love that :lol:[/quote:3aqc9qg0]

 

everyone is getting all excited on there though for a car that looks like the one he started with but a different colour :lol:

 

you can tell im not a bmw fan :camp:

[Jim 2]

You don't really have to be a fan to appreciate the skills and amount of effort that went into it! A ridiculous amount of work to basically make a 4 door E46 really, but masterfully executed!