BMW Group Product Catalog–Historic Models | Hacker News Reader

BMW Group Product Catalog–Historic Models

bmwgroup-classic.com

93 pointsNaOH45 comments

I'm shocked that there's no mention of the E30 3-series in the coupe body style. This is the archetypal 80s BMW that everyone from collectors, to racers (especially, it seems, Lemons racers), to Top Gear (this car had its own Cheap Car Challenge episode), to myself (proud owner of an '87 325is) seem to go after.

The E30 M3 2-door is indeed there, which actually is not the same vehicle. Much of the body is different between the two cars. The M3 additionally has a high-revving, 4-cylinder engine, whereas the 325is has a pretty standard straight-6. While the M3 has a faster 0-to-60, the 325is has a faster 0-to-30, which is perfect if you want to ride it as a daily driver.

Not to mention 4 cylinders have an annoying vibration, whereas an inline-6 are silky smooth and a genuine joy to rev.

4-cylinder engines without balance shafts, anyway.

There is but it’s a linguistic multiplex issue from the period where they were using British English.

The German of the period referred to both the two door and four door variants as limousines. Hand waiving some nuance, American English distinguished two door and four doors as coupes and sedans while British English called both saloons but had a separate more specific term for a coupe.

A lot of the period literature uses the saloon nomenclature but modern literature more frequently favors the American coupe/sedan distinction. Some argue the only true E30 coupe is the Baur Karosserie prototype but only four were made[1]. Where you land on this debate usually has to do with where you are from.

Tap “BMW 3 Series” => “1980s” => “Sedan” to see both Saloon and Coupe variants.

[1] https://www.germancarforum.com/threads/the-bmw-e30-coupe-bau...

According to BMW there is no E30 coupé, it’s a two-doored sedan. The first real 3-series coupé came with the E36.

A great YT channel dedicated to BMW restoration: https://youtube.com/@m539restorations?si=tb4gHcuFZeKhoJp6

One of my favorites.

I emailed him re: the 8 series. I dare say millions of people have tried the same question. The way I see it, whatever agreement we could reach, my investment would be as close as you can get to a sure thing in the automotive world…

Yeah, no. That car “will never be for sale” :-)

The E46 and E39 are one of my favourite cars. Great looks and pure Inline 6 BMW feeling. Nowadays the design of most of their cars is unfortunately quite ugly, not sure what they are aiming at.

Amen. Still great cars, especially for the price, tho parts are increasingly NLA. My M54 is still going strong (compression terrific) other than my oil control rings could use a top end soak. Peak BMW design — inside and out.

They're still doing that "grilles as big as possible" thing, huh...

Someone should take the pics of their historical models and add their idea of the modern grille onto each one...

Apparently the "big grill era" design chief departed semirecently, but the design inertia will continue through another model year or two, just due to lead times.

the grilles are BMW’s answer to Chinese customers customizing their cars like that.

Let their ugliness for ever and eternity be a testament to how whole swaths of western economies for over a decade confused „productivity gains“ with „skimming off China‘s growth“

https://www.thestar.com/autos/why-do-cars-look-so-ugly-famou...

I have a theory... I think it has to do with Chinese cars. You know how so many of the cars from China are kinda weird looking? Not all of them, but a lot of them are either trying totally new styling, or seem to be directly copying existing cars and trying to slightly restyle them.

Well, since China is such a huge market for BMW, I think that they want their cars to look like they were designed in China, or at least to blend in with Chinese cars somewhat. I think that's what they are aiming at. It's the only thing that makes sense.

No idea if it's "authorized" or not but https://www.realoem.com has an electronic parts catalogs that seems to cover all of their models.

Yeah I wonder how they created/sourced that info

i looked into this a little bit - you’ll notice on realoem the catalogue is only 2019. I think this is also around the time BMW made the TIS system update and also knocked off newtis. ETK is the name of the parts catalogue pricing data iirc. I have the db, uses transbase.

Good observation. I'd not really looked at it since we sold my wife's mini, which has been several years. The catalog was invaluable for all the work I had to do to keep it running.

INPA, ISTA, TIS, ETK, E-Sys are factory software from BMW.

I had an E30 that I customised quite heavily. 24v engine, LSD, suspension work. I drove it to the Nurburgring. Good times. I also had 2 x E34's (1 V8 1 diesel) and an E46. The E46 I took to 230k miles. I have an F45 PHEV now, the family transport. It was nice looking at these old catalogs.

Hello fellow Nordschleife fanatic. Did the same with an E36.

>The BMW M3 GTR was a road-going version of the BMW M3 GTR racing car. It was launched as a small series of just ten vehicles and was primarily used to homologate the new V8 engine (P60B40).

BMW continuing to stretch the definitions of "launched" and "ten".

There's a tradition of "homologation specials" where a car company produces the absolute minimum number of cars for a vehicle or part to count as "production" for use in notionally "stock" racing series.

Arguably BMW did not produce even the "absolute minimum number" of cars, since they were required to have at least ten cars to sell and only managed to produce three production-level cars, which they never actually sold. There were a handful of other GTR Straßenversions made during development, but I doubt they even had VINs, and I'm not sure if even counting those would get them to ten. Hence the questionable uses of the words "launched" and "ten".

Reminds me of tales from the Group B days where Austin Rover allegedly wheeled far fewer than the required 200 MG Metro 6R4s past the FIA inspector in a big loop.

My E46 in that purple blue will forever be my favourite car. The purr of the straight 6 was lovely

Just a shame they built the cooling system with such poor plastic parts that were prone to failure.

The coolant inlet flange on a friends ~2015 730d, made of plastic, cracked recently. To remove & replace it you have to pull the whole inlet manifold and a whole host of other bits off.

This is a sort of weakness of BMW’s IMHO. It’s too easy to accidentally break some plastic bits while servicing the car and/or engine. It’s the same on their bikes in my experience.

My first car was E46, used one already 100k km on it (put another 150k before transmission died), had a diesel V6 (travesty, I know). But it was still a very fun car with ridiculously low fuel consumption, total average was maybe 5.5l/100km.

It was so cheap to run for me, maybe I was lucky. Now sporting petrol 5 series F11 and much less impressed, I think thats it for me and BMWs. Things I didn't even know are there break and way more often, electronics and sensor seems like really bad ones (weird warnings, I have to reverse super slowly to not hit anything since it reacts with quite a delay).

I did a hell of a lot of maintenance on my e46 and I think 2010 plus or minus 5 years were not the best modern BMW years. Things like plugs, ac compressor, idler pulley, coils, and the impossible to remove wheel bearing.

I guess I’m a glutton for punishment as I’m about to get a bmw with a hot vee twin turbo V8. Not sure if the older n63 with technical updates is better or worse than the detuned s68 they are using now.

As someone with an e30 and who is currently doing a rotisserie restoration on a '76 2002, this is just awesome. I wish they archived some of their ad literature for these models.

Maybe the current designers and product planners will peruse this and get inspired to make a decent looking car again*

*With actual steering feel and less gimmicks please

It is criminal that you can’t see different angles for these beautiful cars! 507 with no front view? I need to see the evolution of those kidneys!

If only the rest of BMW knew this existed.

downhill since the early 2000s

Fascinating history. Do remind yourself and read about the history of BMW at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_BMW too. They also made aircraft engines and motorbikes (still).

It's hard to find but does also have a page for mini https://www.bmwgroup-classic.com/en/history/historic-modelov...

WW2 BMW motorcycle from the Jacques Littlefield tank collection.

https://www.w6rz.net/DCP_1002.JPG

https://www.w6rz.net/DCP_1003.JPG

The rearview photo shows how serious that machine is - the side-car wheel is also powered (and through what happens to be a locking differential at that). That has been pretty rare. And that also adds the reason why it was so successfully and widely used by German army in the invasions, in particular into USSR where "offroading" capabilities are a must.

Btw, the USSR copy of BMW R-71 ("Dnepr", not the R-75 though) at Ukraine war today - in this case Russians put high-caliber machine gun from BTR onto the side-car https://t.me/Ugolok_Sitha/24913?single

I am in no way a “car guy” but I’ve always thought that the early to mid 1980s BMWs were beautiful. I don’t have the kind of budget (or garage space) to own a car that isn’t a daily driver, but if I did I think I’d look for a 1980s 3 or 5 series.

My parents owned them as a kid and I have fond memories of them and a 2002. Sadly my parents would not drive me in a tin can aka a 2002. They are rust buckets and I don’t live in an area with snow.

There some 90s ones I was interested in buying for a Covid hobby but things like cork gaskets and no available parts kept me away. E46s are nice and somewhat easier to maintain and parts are plentiful, however they lack the headlight look of past years.

When I was in high school my neighbor's daughter had an older BMW 2002 coupe. None of us had heard of BMW and just thought it was an odd-looking foreign car. It wasn't long before everyone was aware of BMW.

Where on the world was this?

Glad to see my 2005 E46 M3 is "historic"

I used to have an e36 m4 and a e39 540i.

Those cars were fantastic when new, but absolute shit boxes after 70-80K miles, then they fall apart as if on purpose.

Plastic cooling system parts. Rear shock tower mounts creaking and cracking. Almost "money shifting" 2nd to 3rd, twice. Steering shimmy that never goes away. Timing chain wear + brokerages. Intake gaskets always needing replacement. Check engine light, always. Budgeting $2K a year just for maintenance.

I'm a tesla guy now.

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