Ok, so I apologize for not giving you all a heads up before this auction went live on BaT. There was a little bit of a mix up on that but it is what it is and here we are. First off I want to thank many of you on this board for all your help, support, conversations, and general enthusiasm that we all share for these BMW's. Many of us own other models and are very loyal to the brand. I grew up with a Bavaria as many of you know since I was two years old and have really never not owned some model of BMW, only for brief stints when I was in college or living in San Francisco back in the late 90's. A garage spot was more than my rent.....LOL. And no way was I parking a vintage BMW on the street there, even then. Never a spot and vandalism was rampant even in lower Knob Hill.
That being said, recently I moved out of CA to Idaho, Northern Idaho Panhandle, Kootenai County. We made the move a year ago and at the time I was just finishing up one of the last major components to my 7 year long restoration of the Bavaria, that being the replacement 3.5L motor and finally getting around to spraying the engine bay when the motor was out. My original numbers matching motor that I do still own (available to new owner first at an agreed upon price) if they want it. I doubt they will, but I at least wanted to keep it for the hard core collector if they end up with the Bav. I obviously was NOT planning on selling anytime soon after such an endeavor.
Well, what I didn't take into account was the long winters here and owning a vintage BMW. I have lived in Jackson Hole and went to Colorado State but I didn't have cars that I felt I couldn't drive all throughout the winter, and never had a garage when I lived in the snow. This Bavaria, with it's low air dam, rear wheel drive and salt free condition (being in CA it's whole life until the move), I decided to keep it covered in my garage for 7-months over the winter, early Spring and not drive it. We never really had a Spring this year. Finally getting some nice weather. So, I had to think long and hard about my decision on keeping it. Garage space is a premium here, I have three spaces and actually turned the 3-car, into a 4-car with some shoehorning the Porsche in with jack rollers on all four wheels and still had to park the daily and my '75 Ford F-250 "High Boy" outside. I had a really hard time just looking at the poor Bavaria covered up all that time in the garage. I like to drive my cars, not look at them, and I couldn't even do that because they were covered.
So, after many sleepless nights, I made the decision to let her go. I want it out and about year long. I did most of my driving in CA in the winter as the temperatures were mild and at the time I didn't have A/C in the Bav as I do now. Blows super cold BTW. New Sanden pump and custom bracket.
I ended up hooking up with the Avant-Garde (911r) guys and the decision to sell was made. I drove the car from Coeur D'Alene to Portland Oregon for one last hoo-rah! Car drove very nicely, practically everything has been rebuilt, NOS, OEM parts etc. so I wasn't worried about it. It has been on drives up and down the CA coast a couple times to Monterey in 2016 for BMW's 100 Anniversary Legends and a great trip Chris Macha put on a couple years ago from Paso Robles to Carmel. Most of the driving was just up and down the Sourthern Cal coast and some fun twisty drives with SoCal Vintage, other drives with the local BMW group and of course C&C's.
That's the long and short....mostly long.....LOL. Anyhow, I am available for any questions, I will NOT be commenting on BaT throughout the auction so please address on this thread or PM me on here. If you would rather talk, just PM me as well and I will send my phone number. I am hoping it goes to one of you of course, that would be best case scenario. But if not, hopefully you will have a nice new member. I will definitely reach out to the new owner and tell him/her about e9coupe.com of course after the auction is over. Such a great resource all of you! I have our 2010 E61 BMW 535i X-drive M-Sport Touring which I love but it's my wife's car mostly. Most likely I will end up with some form of X-Drive myself for a daily. So far I have nothing but great things to say about those cars, I wish they made them new (535i Tourings). I will miss the Bavaria tremendously and all the comradery. Happy Driving! Cheers!
