bmwe21.net forums

I can post pictures later. I have a 1978 320i that I rescued from the trash in 1994. It's on the 5th engine which I had rebuilt but it has 375K miles on it that we know of. The odometer was out of commission for about 10 years. It was a California car before a kid brought it out to NH to race it. He sold it to a friend and my friend sold it to me for $300 rather than sending it off to be parted out.

It was Kelly green and is now a more sedate 1993 Mercedes green metallic. I had restored what chrome i could find. It still has blacked out windows in the back since i didn't want to ruin the rear defroster by pulling the tint film. It's not perfect by any stretch but it's unusual enough that it turns heads. My restoration guy (serious BMW expert) has a mechanic in his 20s who has never seen a live E21. It's fun to have a car that's worth nothing but gets noticed.

Thank you for letting me join.

Howard (southern NH, US)

Welcome here Howard! Really curious about the color of your car now! Almost sounds like sacriledge, Mercedes green haha!

Great story about your e21! Over in Europe, good examples of a 323i e21 are increasing dramaticaly in value. An b+ ore A condition 323i will fetch about 35k $usd and still increasing.

This means that other e21s will increase in value to.

It's a dignified color. The problem was that I didn't want to spend a fortune painting it in 1997 but it needed a new quarter panel and to be sandblasted down and fully repainted. Since it was Kelly to start with, I was worried about making it something other than green since they weren't going to pull the doors and paint the insides of the door openings and the trunk. The original color wasn't available except in a really expensive lacquer. So the compromise was to pick something from the green palette the shop had access to, and this was it. Honestly, no one has ever confused it for a 1993 Mercedes. Since there are so few of these in the area (indeed, only a handful in all of NH) people have no idea what it is except that it has the unmistakable BMW face. They still ask the year in spite of the license plate.

This is worth nothing here. No collectors collect these. If it weren't in decent cosmetic condition (the interior isn't great) and really good running condition it would sell for hundreds as parts. It's worth a few thousand tops at the last appraisal. I ought to get that done again - thanks for getting that idea in my head.

Oh oké. Well, the market for breakers at less than a grant is long gone, here. Even old rotten beaters go for a couple of thousand Euros.

Nevermind, still curious for those photos....

Did they not post? I can see them.

http://placeview.homelinux.org:8081/BMW ... G_1625.JPG

http://placeview.homelinux.org:8081/BMW ... G_1626.JPG

I cant see them, link is not responding.

Arrgh. The 5th try is the charm. The links just above are from my personal server and maybe it's blocking you? I posted them on a picture service and updated the original post.

Nice color indeed sir! Now... the car is screaming for some fresh chrome trim around the front and rear windows

Yeah, see them now! You have pop out windows! Cool feature.

Yep, pop out side windows. The chrome for the windshield and back window were tossed and I never found replacements. I dyed the nylon black but it's faded over the years. The glass guy said that pulling the tint off the back window would destroy the defroster so i decided to live with it darkened and left the side windows darkened too. It makes it look meaner somehow.

The chrome strips that go into the windshieldrubber are available at the dealers.