I almos brought a new manual JCW mini. I then drove a previous gen one and just felt the dynamics of the car were so much better, it didn’t make sense to spend 10k more on something I thought wasn’t as good.

Mmmm my favorite Vette. C4s are in my eyes the best looking Vette. Angular, and clean.

Having had an e39 M5 and two e38 740iLs in the family, I can confirm, they are pretty easy to work on. The nice thing about the M5 is the only thing that they every seem to need is sensors, the cooling systems and timing chains are much up rated and better designed than the 540. There is an M tax, parts are more…

I use the happy dog analogy for the Mini quite a bit actually. It’s an eager puppy and always wants to play.

S “Some people don’t care. I didn’t, I had an E36 too. They crumple like tissue paper in offset crash tests. The E46 does much better and they’re pretty damn cheap these days. I consider the E46 to be the last shade-tree mechanic friendly BMW”

Mmmm e36. I will own one as a daily someday.

I fully support. I did the same thing when I owned this.

BTW, that was from driving home last night from the ski resort. An hour drive of unplowed roads.

I drive a miniature snow plow.

Eh, I find sitting on the edge of the trunk has the same benefits you describes here.

I agree with this. I went from a big high revving V8 to a turbo 4 car. The large turbo lag is fun to play with but the engine isn’t nearly as dynamic or sporty as pretty much any NA car I have driven. I also agree that having the power down low where it is accessible all the time gets boring fast. That’s the main…

I actually use this all the time in my Oldsmobile, e39 and e36.

I upgraded to a car with an infotainment system recently. I’m looking forward to buying a 90s car to replace it and have things be simpler again. I miss the pop in a tape or choose a CD from the disk changer. I also miss simple climate controls.

I’ll admit, once the appropriate Dolby setting is set on the tape deck, a CD and a tape sound identical to me. And honestly I prefer the higher pitched version without any Dolby filtering.

I used the daylights out of the tape deck in my e39 M5, the one that’s behind the navigation screen...

I keep seeing the older manual ones come up on bring a trailer and get really tempted as a winter machine . But then I remember that I drive a car with four inches of ground clearance in the front and don’t have any issues driving though deep snow.

I took my e39 M5 down a path that was more appropriate for Jeeps. I only hit the diff on one rock. Was looking for good driving mountain roads and found more of path to remote cabins.

I do agree with British Car clubs. I have an Austin Healey Sprite and the people who I meet with it are absolutely awesome. However there are many British car guys that just act so arrogant. Every year I go to the giant PVGP car show in Pittsburgh, I take my Sprite and my R56 Mini or BMW, the BMW section people are so…

Agreed. I’ve worked a bit with cfrp and can confirm it is way easier to repair and make look good than anything made of metal. Especially if there is a complex shape.

R56 mini built to basically GP spec. It’s my autocross car, daily driver and winter ski adventure rally stage car. The Quaife ATB differential was a nice upgrade this year, it’s a hoot in the snow.