e12m535i

December 2005 – February 2006
Since getting the car back on the road last summer, I’ve been increasingly disappointed with the look of the original 14″ wheels. Also, the handling of the wheels and tires was not up to the level that the chassis was capable of. I’ve always lusted after a set of vintage, open-lug Alpina 16×7/16×8 wheels but abruptly something in me snapped last Fall. These are admittedly beautiful wheels, but they always trade at a huge price premium that I have never felt was completely justified. Figure $1500 for a nice set. I had always planned on buying a set that needed refinishing because I wanted to powdercoat the centers and do a silver lip. However, I came to the conclusion (very suddenly) that I would rather have BBS wheels on my car, and the ones I wanted were the three-piece RS type.

I can blame Zane Coker and Peter Pratter for this disease. I kept looking long and hard at their BBS RS wheels eventually deciding that I really wanted to do the same thing although not quite as wide. Both of them are running 10″ wide rear BBS RS wheels with a 245 stretched over that which required rear-end modifications for fitment. No, I was willing to roll my fenders, but that was about it. I also didn’t want the BBS RS sizes more commonly found in the United States, which are 16×7/16×8. After researching through Peter and Zane and learning about the vibrant trade going on over at ebay.de in these wheels, I decided to look for a set. I wanted a set of 16×8 et11 front and 16×9 et24 rear to be a little different from the crowd. These are the same offsets as the Alpina open lug wheels which work perfectly on an E12. I had a feeling that even with the wider widths, these offsets in a BBS RS would work as well. I also wanted a set of these wheels with black centers and a polished lip. I knew finding this exact set on ebay.de would be slim but I was looking anyway. Eventually a set came up on ebay.de that were very close, but with a 20mm front offset which I couldn’t use. I emailed the seller and it turns out he can get near anything for you through his connections so I had him “build” me a set to my specs and refinish them with black centers. His name is Markus and he’s a regular on the E30 M3 website, s14.net. I can put you in contact with him if you are interested in a set of these wheels for your own.

After waiting for weeks to have Markus locate the right set of wheels, then take them apart and refinish them, reseal the three pieces and rebuild them (torquing to the right specs), they finally arrived Feb 6th. They were so beautiful! I skimped on rubber for now since I didn’t want to blow $800 for a set of Bridgestone S03’s like I wanted. I bought some used Dunlop SP8000’s which will be fine for my current amount of driving (2500 miles a year, usually much less) until I feel the need to replace them. Sizes are 225/50/16 front and 245/45/16 rear. The pictures on the right speak for themselves. I think the car looks stunning although the look isn’t for everyone. Most agree that the black centers look good on the white car, but they are very shiny and make a statement. Some feel that this statement is wrong on the car.

A few points of clarification in my defense for this modification. These BBS RS wheels are vintage 1980’s and would have represented a typical aftermarket addition by a BMW 5-series owner in that decade. Whenever I have done modifications to my car, I have tried to think “What would an owner in the first few years of ownership have done to the car, particularly in Germany?”. That is why my car has Alpina springs and some other items that in my opinion are “period correct modifications”. It’s a fine line, and my rule has always been that the mods should be reversible. Ah, but you point out, fender rolling is NOT reversible. Very true, and this was a difficult decision to make. However, my E34 M5 has rolled fenders from either the factory or a previous owner in Germany. Done right it is very hard to tell this is done without running your finger inside the fender wells to check. So I decided that I could live with it and it would be an o.k. modification for the car. Fender flares and extreme cutting would not be!

To close, the fender rolling still has to be done. The fitment of the wheels and tires is beautiful, but they are very close to the front strut and the rears are very close to the fender lip. I also need to install the rear camber kit I already have to hopefully “tuck” the tops of the tires in the fenders. Also I’m unhappy with the ride height even with the supposedly “very low” Alpina springs. I need to get the front lowered somehow. Finally, I have the rear subframe mount stiffeners on order from BMP Design (cheap insurance, $35) to keep the rear subframe from shifting and having the tires rub, even with rolled fenders. I’ll tackle the fender rolling in the Spring (I need to borrow my friend’s 14″ wheels and tires from his E12 to drive the car somewhere for the rolling job!).

Spring 2006 – June 2006
It’s been quite a while since I posted an update on the car. The main news (which is kind of old now) is that I did get the wheels to fit on the car and it is driveable. It was quite an ordeal though. First off, I brought the car to Patrick BMW’s body shop in Schaumburg and talked at length with the estimator about the car, it’s rarity, and my requirements. I also got to meet the guy who was going to do the fender rolling and does all of the fender rolling jobs at their shop. He had never done an E12 though, mostly E36 and E46 M3 racecars. Still I liked both guys a lot and they were very respectful of me and the car. Unfortunately, due to no fault of their own, the fender rolling didn’t go that well at first. The passenger side rear fender had paint chips nearly all the way around. Fine, I guess I sort of expected that. But the driver side rear fender had hidden rust and bondo!! More dirty little secrets of my poor car. What happens in this case is when they attach the fender rolling tool to the hub of the car and it starts bending the metal, good metal bends well with the proper coaxing. Bondi/filler is rigid and doesn’t bend, so you get a crunched up fender like mine. Again, the guys at Patrick were awesome and this was not their fault. More joyful things to find out about my car from her previous history.

Unfortunately I’m not at the point to fix this properly so I told the guy at the body shop to use filler (it was already there before anyway and I never knew) and paint it and make it right. This required painting of the quarter panels on each of the rear sides of the car. The paint looks good but doesn’t quite match due to age and fading. Again, the car needs a full repaint and resto at some point but I got my main goal accomplished, the big wheels and tires do fit!

So how does she drive? Well…. on smooth roads the ride is very firm and taut. On bad roads ……… she rides like a truck!! But wow, wow, wow, the car sure gets some stares now at traffic lights. Cool stuff. Also the handling is a bit better, but at the expense of heavy steering of course. I’ll be the first to admit that this mod is overkill, and at the expense of some of the old character of the car, but wow the massive footprint and gorgeous 16″ BBS wheels make it worth it. The car got lots of attention at this year’s 5er Fest Event and it was 90% because of the wheels. They drew quite a crowd.

As prep for 5er Fest, I did a few other things including new front wheel bearings (because of the big wheels and tires), cleaned up the trunk finally and put all the panels back there since I had never put them back (the rear seatback panel’s vinyl, the shock tower covers, etc). I also did some liberal POR-15 rust repair back there before putting it all back and also did some in a few other areas that I knew needed a dose (under the doors for one). These are areas I’m not concerned about since they will get fixed with either welding or new panels eventually, and I don’t drive the car in anything except perfect weather anyway. Still, it helps to have POR-15 on there keeping the rust at bay for a while.

Yes, in the night picture of the car, those are sucky US-DOT headlights in there. I haven’t replaced my yellow Cibies yet that used to be in there. It’s coming at some point when I get the cash to do what I really want. Also this summer I might try sealing up and painting the fuel tank as a “dunright” disease item on my list. Until next time!