Surprise Auction Win Collection - BMW Z3

[Schaefft]

So I thought about registering for today's Mathewsons Classic Car Auction for a car I had on my radar. Never done it before.

I had a fair price in mind, put a first bid in just to confirm everything works and somehow won the car.

Insurance sorted for tomorrow. Weather looks perfect, let's go!

Edit: NEVERMIND, auction is still ongoing tomorrow so can only collect on Tuesday at the earliest. Feel free to guess what it might be!

[Erebus]

BMW 523?

[gadgetgricey]

110?

[DSdriver]

Citroen ID19?

[Schaefft]

None of these, I haven't even seen a BMW 523i. I just bought one in Germany!

[Hertz]

This looks like a nice buy..

 

[cort16]

My guess is this

https://www.mathewsons.co.uk/auction/lot/lot-24---2000-bmw-z3/?lot=18477&so=0&st=&sto=0&au=53&ef=&et=&ic=False&sd=1&pp=96&pn=1&g=1

[Rust Collector]

I've not cheated and read the catalogue yet, but I'll have a first guess:

An orange FSO Polonez with 3,000 miles on the clock. It was put away in a concrete lockup by the first owner in 1986 after realising how abysmal it was to drive. It has finally emerged from the lockup to the light of day, somehow looking like it's done 300,000 miles. Along the bottom of the English Channel. You will spend months restoring it painstakingly at great expense. You'll then drive it, realise how abysmal it is as a vehicle, and return it to a concrete lockup for the next poor bastard to find in forty years time.

[Rust Collector]

I've just had a read of the catalogue, and the car I'm definite you've bought isn't in there.

So I'm going with this instead:

[EyesWeldedShut]

??

[Schaefft]

All good guesses but Mr. @cort16was spot on!

3 hours ago, cort16 said:

My guess is this

https://www.mathewsons.co.uk/auction/lot/lot-24---2000-bmw-z3/?lot=18477&so=0&st=&sto=0&au=53&ef=&et=&ic=False&sd=1&pp=96&pn=1&g=1

Which means I must be buying M52b28 powered BMWs pretty much every 3 months at this point.

As mentioned this is the first time I bid in a live online auction that's not eBay. The car started at 2000 and bidding started immediately. I thought why not put a test bid in before the price rises too high as I only really considered winning this one if it was cheap. For some reason those previous bids were immediately retracted (some kind of mistake on-site?) which meant I now suddenly had the highest bid at 2100 quid. To my surprise nobody bothered bidding any higher and I won the bloody car...

Not a problem as this is a fairly well specced 2.8 Z3 in what appears to be tidy condition. With auction fees the total comes to £2305, and it's worth that all day long. I'm hoping the weather holds up and I can turn the collection into a nice trip through the Yorkshire moors!

[Rust Collector]

The 2.8 straight six must be glorious in an open top roadster, I'm properly jealous of you picking that up!!

[cort16]

13 minutes ago, Schaefft said:

All good guesses but Mr. @cort16was spot on!

Which means I must be buying M52b28 powered BMWs pretty much every 3 months at this point.

As mentioned this is the first time I bid in a live online auction that's not eBay. The car started at 2000 and bidding started immediately. I thought why not put a test bid in before the price rises too high as I only really considered winning this one if it was cheap. For some reason those previous bids were immediately retracted (some kind of mistake on-site?) which meant I now suddenly had the highest bid at 2100 quid. To my surprise nobody bothered bidding any higher and I won the bloody car...

Not a problem as this is a fairly well specced 2.8 Z3 in what appears to be tidy condition. With auction fees the total comes to £2305, and it's worth that all day long. I'm hoping the weather holds up and I can turn the collection into a nice trip through the Yorkshire moors!

BMW + big engine + bargain price I thought it was up your street! Nice drive down to get it too.

[hairnet]

name change to wade or bond now?

 

[Schaefft]

3 hours ago, hairnet said:

name change to wade or bond now?

 

Even Bond only had the pleasure of driving the tiny 1.9 4-banger in one of these (Q later made this up by giving him a Z8 though)!

And thanks everyone. Collection will now happen Saturday next week, fingers crossed it'll be ready to go by then. My younger brother is currently driving a 2.0l one, black as well, with 200k miles on the odometer.

To give you an idea what Z3s are actually worth outside of the UK, he paid 5k Euros for his which was still a good deal (he got the hardtop with it though). A facelift manual Z3 in black with these options is quickly approaching 5 figures nowadays.

[hairnet]

dont think ever seen one of these with hardtop

[Schaefft]

8 minutes ago, hairnet said:

dont think ever seen one of these with hardtop

Yeah, you could get an optional removable hardtop for them, it actually looks pretty good on them, too.

Also correction, Z3s like the one above don't approach 5 figures, the cheapest one with similar miles starts at 12 grand on mobile.de and quickly approaches 15 grand. Puts things into perspective how cheap some of these cars are over here.

[GMcD]

Bargain! Nicely done!

[Supernaut]

This gives me the impetus to keep my M52 engined E36 alive.

It's slumbering for the winter, but it will be back in spring. Stronger than ever.

Yes I know mine is only an M52B25 but still...

 

Top buyage Mr Schaefft!

[JakeT]

My good lady had a 2.2 auto model in runout sport trim, and it was a lovely cruiser. for going to the pub on a summers Saturday afternoon in. Never gave any issues until it was pinched. Then, when it was found a year later, we put it back on the road and she parked it in the back of a 1 series a few days later. That was the end of the Z3 (and her NCB).

 

Good buy, for what seems a good price. I don’t think these rust too awfully either. Build quality is crap, I think they were the first American built BMWs and they weren’t as good as German built ones (E36s generally have poor interiors though). I think Z3s didn’t suffer from Nikasil issues either, but I could be wrong.

 

Actually, seeing it’s on a V plate, it’s a twin VANOS one probably and totally fine either way.

[Schaefft]

1 hour ago, Supernaut said:

This gives me the impetus to keep my M52 engined E36 alive.

It's slumbering for the winter, but it will be back in spring. Stronger than ever.

Yes I know mine is only an M52B25 but still...

 

Top buyage Mr Schaefft!

Thanks! E36 are getting more desirable every year, definitely worth investing a bit of time into to keep it decent.

1 hour ago, JakeT said:

My good lady had a 2.2 auto model in runout sport trim, and it was a lovely cruiser. for going to the pub on a summers Saturday afternoon in. Never gave any issues until it was pinched. Then, when it was found a year later, we put it back on the road and she parked it in the back of a 1 series a few days later. That was the end of the Z3 (and her NCB).

 

Good buy, for what seems a good price. I don’t think these rust too awfully either. Build quality is crap, I think they were the first American built BMWs and they weren’t as good as German built ones (E36s generally have poor interiors though). I think Z3s didn’t suffer from Nikasil issues either, but I could be wrong.

 

Actually, seeing it’s on a V plate, it’s a twin VANOS one probably and totally fine either way.

Most of the dash is coming out of the E36 Compact, BMWs cheapest model at the time. I sat in my brother's and it's not horrible but definitely one of those areas BMW could have tried harder. You could get an extended leather package that would improve things a lot but hardly anyone ordered it unfortunately. The sport seats are exclusive to the Z3 though and the chrome package helps, some wood trim might as well which is fairly rare.

[Supernaut]

20 minutes ago, Schaefft said:

Thanks! E36 are getting more desirable every year, definitely worth investing a bit of time into to keep it decent.

Indeed.

It's currently on SORN due to the MOT being very close to expiry plus my lack of desire to drive it in winter.

Before it can get an MOT it needs both front shocks and springs replaced. I have Meyle HD top mounts, Bilstein springs and Sachs shocks already stashed in the car. I just need the motivation to do it.

The drivers side handbrake needs rebuilt too, thanks to it auto-dismantling on the Isle of Skye back in June...

Despite it not having a single straight body panel, it's astonishingly clean underneath (after Gingernuttz welded up the jacking points last October).

The gear linkage is getting rather sloppy too. Every set of instructions I've found have "remove prop shaft" as step one though!

 

I agree on the comments about E36 interiors though. It's got a few creaks and rattles but I can forgive it after 25 years and 186k miles.

 

[JakeT]

5 hours ago, Schaefft said:

Most of the dash is coming out of the E36 Compact, BMWs cheapest model at the time. I sat in my brother's and it's not horrible but definitely one of those areas BMW could have tried harder. You could get an extended leather package that would improve things a lot but hardly anyone ordered it unfortunately. The sport seats are exclusive to the Z3 though and the chrome package helps, some wood trim might as well which is fairly rare.

Oh yes! The pull out light switch took me right back. You’re right though, but oh well. Extended leather is nice, as are the sport seats. To be fair the interior is better quality than a pre ‘94 E36 anyway, plus they’re easy to clean. Looking forward to see how you go with it. With a 2.8 or 3.0 they’re fast little cars too! And usually have an LSD too

[Matty]

On 13/10/2023 at 16:54, Schaefft said:

All good guesses but Mr. @cort16was spot on!

Which means I must be buying M52b28 powered BMWs pretty much every 3 months at this point.

As mentioned this is the first time I bid in a live online auction that's not eBay. The car started at 2000 and bidding started immediately. I thought why not put a test bid in before the price rises too high as I only really considered winning this one if it was cheap. For some reason those previous bids were immediately retracted (some kind of mistake on-site?) which meant I now suddenly had the highest bid at 2100 quid. To my surprise nobody bothered bidding any higher and I won the bloody car...

Not a problem as this is a fairly well specced 2.8 Z3 in what appears to be tidy condition. With auction fees the total comes to £2305, and it's worth that all day long. I'm hoping the weather holds up and I can turn the collection into a nice trip through the Yorkshire moors!

My dad has one which we went upto Durham for. Despite a lifelong dislike of sports cars and convertibles, it's a lovely thing. I've been a softy for a bmw 6 forever and had several and still have one myself. They are very pleasingly old school and old fashioned feeling. A lovely place to be all in all. Well won that man 👍

[Schaefft]

And we are off. This should hopefully be a pretty uneventful journey down to Pickering, even the poo count is zero.

First and only mode of transport, the Fiat 500.

[loserone]

I love the road surface.  Not many left like that.

 

Probably the least appropriate car of all the ones between you parked in that street, but I'm guessing Ms_Schaefft wouldn't be comfortable driving the others 😅

[Schaefft]

Just now, loserone said:

I love the road surface.  Not many left like that.

 

Probably the least appropriate car of all the ones between you parked in that street, but I'm guessing Ms_Schaefft wouldn't be comfortable driving the others 😅

Yeah, she drove the E38 7-series for a little while but prefers the Fiat, driving that far is stressful enough for her already being in her own car😂

[Schaefft]

Fiat broke down but it's not ours! Wouldn't be surprised if he drove through the large puddle just behind him.

[Twiggy]

Good luck ! I hope it all goes well.

[Schaefft]

Middlesbrough (or what's left of it) looks even more dystopian than usual.