This E46 sedan started life in a pretty mundane spec, a base model leatherette interior 323i. Two good options were ticked, however, the Hellrot paint and the 5 speed manual transmission. Many owners, several accidents, and 278,000 miles later my dad bought it from a local BMW CCA member’s son for my brother and I to share as a project car and learn how to work on cars when I was 16. My brother wasn’t very interested in it as he’s always been more of an E36 person, so I ended up having it to myself.
It came to me pretty rough. Every body panel had been repainted pretty poorly so there was clear coat peeling all over, big dents on the passenger side, and just overall looked how you’d expect after nearly 280k miles of hard driving.
I quickly grew to like upgrades that would have been stock parts on other cars, called OEM+ modifications by many. I began swapping parts out such as a steering wheel from an E46 M3 (a $150 find on ebay from a 15k mile car in mint condition), natural brown interior from a facelift with retrofitted heated seats, BMW Performance cold air intake, and many obscure and euro parts I would see pop up on German eBay. It had several sets of wheels on it at different times such as the OZ Superturismos seen above and the E39-fitment style 32’s. Ultimately it was M54B30 swapped and was about as fast as an E36 M3.
