Hi and greetings from Finland!
I'm a long time BMW fan. I've owned multiple M-cars and the usual ones, total 18 of different ones plus one bmw motorcycle. My streak of BMWs stopped after test driving Tesla back in 2013. Few years after, I got Model S and my interest towards gas cars suddenly dropped. They started to feel expensive to drive, lazy, laggy and complex. Usually seeing a review of some new gasoline car usually got my interest, but not anymore. All the sudden my generic interest to cars started to fade, as there was just a few interesting cars to follow.
Few years later, I found out that I could actually legally swap electric drivetrain to almost any car. So I was back into looking some interesting gas cars, to convert. I started googling with something like "coolest classic bmws", and I think it was like second or third picture that had this StanceWorks E9 and I was totally sold.
In Finland, there was exactly 0 E9 cars on sale. Sweden had couple and in Germany several. Ranging from 25.000e -> 65.000e for non-CSL car. I had a guy in Germany, near Frankfurt, who had bought me one E46 M3 couple years back. So I preferred near that area in my search.. After couple weeks of browsing the ads, there was this quite cheap and good looking Sienna brown 1974 E9, which was like 40 minutes drive from his house. The ad came on online in the evening, my guy called the seller on the morning. There was many callers already in the evening, and somebody had reserved the car already
. I said that let's offer him what he asks. If the guy who reserved it would start to bargain etc. Seller called back afternoon, and said that the reserver did not show up, so the car is yours if you're fast enough to get here before the reserver guy appears. Car was reserved only until 12:00. So we made the deal. I Bought a 1974 BMW 3.0 CS on November 2018, with sunroof as an extra-option without actually seeing the car, or actually ever even seeing E9 live probably. Not too many of those in Finland
I don't have any background on building cars nor mechanical expertise. So I'm going to rely my friends shop quite heavily. I'm going to be more like the project manager and designer. Purchasing all the parts and probably do some technical stuff when the time comes to install that electric stuff and do some instrument cluster etc magic in the cockpit.
It took 3 weeks to get the car to Finland. When it arrived, I was happily surprised. It was in good condition. Or well, the engine was not running properly .. but that was not an obstacle here.
Took the car to my friends shop. They stripped it down and soda blasted it. It's now waiting for rust repairs. Roof is the biggest issue. Some quite minor stuff addition to roof, like floor panels.
While car has been stored and waiting. I bought a battery pack from salvaged 2017/12 Model S 75D, and P85 large drive unit (electric motor with inverter and differential in same housing). That motor outputs 400kw of power with instant torque.
I think the suspension and brakes needs proper upgrading. Maybe the whole body could need some strengthening. Strut bars I guess is one. Not sure what else could be done. Also thinking that can the roof be strenghtened somehow without adding roll cage.
Also would like to change the seats. Maybe some classic Recaro ones.
Plan is to have this thing running before summer! Wish me luck
ps. I have Instagram account for the build http://instagram.com/electric_e9/
I'm a long time BMW fan. I've owned multiple M-cars and the usual ones, total 18 of different ones plus one bmw motorcycle. My streak of BMWs stopped after test driving Tesla back in 2013. Few years after, I got Model S and my interest towards gas cars suddenly dropped. They started to feel expensive to drive, lazy, laggy and complex. Usually seeing a review of some new gasoline car usually got my interest, but not anymore. All the sudden my generic interest to cars started to fade, as there was just a few interesting cars to follow.
Few years later, I found out that I could actually legally swap electric drivetrain to almost any car. So I was back into looking some interesting gas cars, to convert. I started googling with something like "coolest classic bmws", and I think it was like second or third picture that had this StanceWorks E9 and I was totally sold.
In Finland, there was exactly 0 E9 cars on sale. Sweden had couple and in Germany several. Ranging from 25.000e -> 65.000e for non-CSL car. I had a guy in Germany, near Frankfurt, who had bought me one E46 M3 couple years back. So I preferred near that area in my search.. After couple weeks of browsing the ads, there was this quite cheap and good looking Sienna brown 1974 E9, which was like 40 minutes drive from his house. The ad came on online in the evening, my guy called the seller on the morning. There was many callers already in the evening, and somebody had reserved the car already
. I said that let's offer him what he asks. If the guy who reserved it would start to bargain etc. Seller called back afternoon, and said that the reserver did not show up, so the car is yours if you're fast enough to get here before the reserver guy appears. Car was reserved only until 12:00. So we made the deal. I Bought a 1974 BMW 3.0 CS on November 2018, with sunroof as an extra-option without actually seeing the car, or actually ever even seeing E9 live probably. Not too many of those in Finland I don't have any background on building cars nor mechanical expertise. So I'm going to rely my friends shop quite heavily. I'm going to be more like the project manager and designer. Purchasing all the parts and probably do some technical stuff when the time comes to install that electric stuff and do some instrument cluster etc magic in the cockpit.
It took 3 weeks to get the car to Finland. When it arrived, I was happily surprised. It was in good condition. Or well, the engine was not running properly .. but that was not an obstacle here.
Took the car to my friends shop. They stripped it down and soda blasted it. It's now waiting for rust repairs. Roof is the biggest issue. Some quite minor stuff addition to roof, like floor panels.
While car has been stored and waiting. I bought a battery pack from salvaged 2017/12 Model S 75D, and P85 large drive unit (electric motor with inverter and differential in same housing). That motor outputs 400kw of power with instant torque.
I think the suspension and brakes needs proper upgrading. Maybe the whole body could need some strengthening. Strut bars I guess is one. Not sure what else could be done. Also thinking that can the roof be strenghtened somehow without adding roll cage.
Also would like to change the seats. Maybe some classic Recaro ones.
Plan is to have this thing running before summer! Wish me luck
ps. I have Instagram account for the build http://instagram.com/electric_e9/
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