Rare & Unique Parts, Cars - Let's share pics etc...

[MParallel]

My pleasure.

Glad to help you out. I saw it listed and immediately thought of Jim. If it belonged on any project, this was it. It was some juggling around between the German seller and me, me and Jim, me and a friend buddy who has a 'pickup' guy who picked it up in Germany, then my other friend to do the shipping. Jim trusting a 'complete stranger' to send the money to.

In the end everything worked out and without a glitch.

Of course now I am calling first dibs on the testride!

[warez]

Indeed! It helps knowing nice people. Mparallel contacted me when it was available and without him I would have never been able to get that ultra rare piece. It's probably the rarest E36 Motorsport Gp.A part next to the Motorsport exhaust and was the final missing piece to my build. I can't thank you enough for your help! Cheers!

Oh lord....you need to thank me first....I found this on ebay-kleinanzeigen.de and shared with M Parallel...hahaha.

I have your CSL airbox already from a few years back. Anyways, very glad and proud to see this Group A part stay within the group here and especially with you to complete the Group A build!

Congratulations!!!

[Jim E.]

Oh lord....you need to thank me first....I found this on ebay-kleinanzeigen.de and shared with M Parallel...hahaha.

I have your CSL airbox already from a few years back. Anyways, very glad and proud to see this Group A part stay within the group here and especially with you to complete the Group A build!

Congratulations!!!

Well then you also get a HUGE thank you for spotting it and sharing it with the right person!! I really appreciate it! I'm also really happy that the people involved in spotting and helping me get this ultra rare piece are both forum members!!

I didn't remember that I sold you my CSL airbox way back! Small world and glad things came around the way they did!!

Cheers!

[LWRNCE]

LOL. My bad.

NSFW:

My goodness....

[lagunasecablau]

You are correct. Special order Individual only for lumbar. Hence why it's probably the rarest factory option on the E36 M3s.

Only 2 Headlight washers systems on U.S. cars:

1st one is this car: https://bmwmregistry.com/detail.php?id=1143

2nd one is this:

WBSCD0327VEE1007 also had the headlight washer option. U.S. spec M3/4/A but for some reason is being parted-out in Denmark with 89k miles and no apparent damage.

[Jim E.]

My stats only cover coupes. I'm not a big sedan type of guy so I don't look them up much.

BTW, that is not a valid vin. Missing a digit. I looked at that site and don't see that car for some reason.

Post link.

[lagunasecablau]

My stats only cover coupes. I'm not a big sedan type of guy so I don't look them up much.

BTW, that is not a valid vin. Missing a digit. I looked at that site and don't see that car for some reason.

Post link.

Oops, looks like I forgot a 0 in there, sorry about that. The correct VIN is WBSCD0327VEE10007. Link to the car is here: https://www.koedbmw.com/en-dk/catalo...es/07-05-08_01.

[Jim E.]

Interesting. This car was actually a pre-production development vehicle for BMW. It was eventually sold to someone but didn't start as a special order by an individual buyer. Basically this means it was a test vehicle used for certification, demo or display etc....

In fact, EE10005 through EE10009 were all pre-production with one other car from this group also having headlamp washers.

[lagunasecablau]

Thank you for the info, quick question however; why are these VINs considered pre-production cars if they're built well into even the U.S. E36 M3 production (pre-production for the S52 or sedan model maybe?). As you've probably already seen this car's production date was September of '96. Thanks

[Jim E.]

I wouldn't take "pre-production" literally. BMW calls this "Control, preseries" or "coordination pre-series" etc.... If you are familiar with "Dealer Demo" cars then think of this as "BMW NAs Demo" cars. It's a way of ordering cars that they can use for themselves or some other internal purpose. Since it's not a customer order car they can order it any way they want it and sometimes you see odd options that the average dealer may or may not know about. That particular car for example had a production date of April 1996 but wasn't eventually sold to someone until June 1997.

I remember something like this happened in the mid-2000s with the E39 M5. A friend who worked at one of the corporate owned dealerships told me he bought a brand new (less than a few thousand miles) around 2005 or 2006 directly from BMW. It was never titled. Apparently BMW had a bunch (maybe 5 or more) of E39 M5s in their basement that they forgot about and needed to get rid of them. These were their "demo" cars they ordered for their own use like the M3 you found. The option code is 991.

[lagunasecablau]

I wouldn't take "pre-production" literally. BMW calls this "Control, preseries" or "coordination pre-series" etc.... If you are familiar with "Dealer Demo" cars then think of this as "BMW NAs Demo" cars. It's a way of ordering cars that they can use for themselves or some other internal purpose. Since it's not a customer order car they can order it any way they want it and sometimes you see odd options that the average dealer may or may not know about. That particular car for example had a production date of April 1996 but wasn't eventually sold to someone until June 1997.

I remember something like this happened in the mid-2000s with the E39 M5. A friend who worked at one of the corporate owned dealerships told me he bought a brand new (less than a few thousand miles) around 2005 or 2006 directly from BMW. It was never titled. Apparently BMW had a bunch (maybe 5 or more) of E39 M5s in their basement that they forgot about and needed to get rid of them. These were their "demo" cars they ordered for their own use like the M3 you found. The option code is 991.

Thanks for the insight Jim. Knowledge like this is why I appreciate the forums so much. I also noticed the S916 option on this car which correlated to "development vehicle without conservation" (no underbody protectant is what I believe this means) which I thought was also pretty interesting to see. Even my own E46 M3 has the S999A code as it was a dealer ordered "demo". Cheers