a couple of new coupes on ebay

Nice, but

I think 35K, detail in the little things, to me, are an indication of the quality of the work in general. I know that's not totally indicative of the build(s) but if you're going to spend thousands on paint, then why not fix or re-do the door panels and use shorter bolts on the front shock mounts so they don't go through the hood. Not being over critical I hope but the quality of the cars and the work I have seen being done by the "non-professional" forum members far exceeds the work that has been done by some of these "collectors" and "car guys", and then they put the cars on sale at a dealer and expect way too much money for them- IMO. Truth is, anyone who buys one of these cars is going to have to work on them to some degree and at the end of the day (if we are lucky) we own one of the most beautiful cars ever made by BMW- which says ALLOT! but the machine is what it is and unless it's something super special then value is in the purse of the owner and the market does not seem to be calling for these prices.

Just a few thoughts :-)
 
Peter Coomaraswamy said:
I think 35K, detail in the little things, to me, are an indication of the quality of the work in general. I know that's not totally indicative of the build(s) but if you're going to spend thousands on paint, then why not fix or re-do the door panels and use shorter bolts on the front shock mounts so they don't go through the hood. Not being over critical I hope but the quality of the cars and the work I have seen being done by the "non-professional" forum members far exceeds the work that has been done by some of these "collectors" and "car guys", and then they put the cars on sale at a dealer and expect way too much money for them- IMO. Truth is, anyone who buys one of these cars is going to have to work on them to some degree and at the end of the day (if we are lucky) we own one of the most beautiful cars ever made by BMW- which says ALLOT! but the machine is what it is and unless it's something super special then value is in the purse of the owner and the market does not seem to be calling for these prices.

Just a few thoughts :-)
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I don't think its possible to be too critical. The term "restoration shop" is being slung around way too casually, in my opinion.
 
About the first one: rear shelf speakers, incomplete tool kit with the usual cracked and broken tabs, ugly modern stereo, Len's points and those are just starters.
Right you are, Peter.
 
I have seen and touched the silver 3.0CS...

When Neil got the silver 1972 he called me and asked me to take a look at it. He also asked me what I thought it was worth to sell at retail.

The car appears to be a very solid and basically rust free car. Although I did NOT have it up on a rack to examine the bottom.

Is it a perfect show car? NO! Just a nice solid driver quality Coupe...

In my opinion if you found a solid E9 with similar options for around $22,000-25,000 that needed paint, interior,mechanical, chrome, rubber etc. here in So Cal you could NOT restore that car to being as nice as this car for less then around $25,000-$30,000 and probably more.... Been there done that! I paid $19,000 for paint and very minor body work on my CSi...

I heard that John Esposito charged a guy $45,000 for body/paint plus parts and Jeff Tiege paid around $30K to have the amazing white Coupe painted...

I think Coupe King and LaJolla charge a lot more like around $40,000-50,000 for a full E9 street quality restoration. And neither of these shops are interested in the cars being restored to being totally original. I have seen their restorations and they look absolutely fantastic!

I am not knocking either shop...

But they are not restored like the crazy Porsche guys (Guilty) do a restoration with every nut, bolt and tiny detail being exactly like when delivered from the factory. Non matching engine numbers using a late 3.5 liter with EFI and a 5 speed is their standard for E9s. The material used in the trunk of the cars I have seen by these guys is very nice and clean but is NOT the same Elephant Skin that was used as original. And a green screw driver in the tool kit is not considered wrong.

I also think based upon their past offerings that Mark at Huntington Ridge Motors and other East Coast dealers would be asking around $65,000-$70,000 for the same car.

So when asked I told Neil I thought $55,000 was a fair number to start as an asking price...

Flame away!
 
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Between the pair, the silver one seems like a better car to me.
Original paint holding the unmolested rust on the verona car is worth 10% more though?
 
Well, the Polaris coupe was originally at $57,500, the reserve is somewhere right below $50,000 I assume. It's let down by the underside, subframes and suspension look tired/rusty, rattle can paint on underside and on exhaust pipe, black paint in spare tire well. But, if really solid it's still worth $42,000 to $45,000 or thereabouts I think (without seeing in person).
 
The polaris coupe now actually has a BIN price of 49.5k, which is lower than the verona at just under 55k BIN. OEM rust costs extra, apparently ;)
 
The rockers are at least strong enough to use as jacking points

:neutral:I noticed they chose different front jacking position on the lift.
The red car is lifted under the rockers..
 

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The Polaris car looks to have a repaired cracked dash. A friend does amazing work on interiors and dashes and he says its nearly impossible to repair a vacuum formed vinyl dash and make it look good. I'm not sure I get the gray-with-black-spots-underside paint job either. Its obvious they just rattle canned the underside with gray paint and then added some random black splotches, also painting part of the exhaust and brackets.

I guess this stuff means quite a bit to me if you're going to compare starting with a $25k car and add another $25k to restore it to end up with a car like this. I think I'd be really pissed off if my car looks like this after spending that much money.

Also, $20-30k for body and paint work? Holy crap. I think these cars are worth in the $30k range tops. Sorry, money comes to hard for me so I'd nit-pik everything...
 
I think the grey paint is just thin, it didn't cover the prior black rattle can or worse, they sprayed over dirt and oil.
 
It looks to me like they only had one can of spray paint and they tried to cover too much area with it - ends up looking like ww2 german winter camouflage.


Administrator said:
I'm not sure I get the gray-with-black-spots-underside paint job either. Its obvious they just rattle canned the underside with gray paint and then added some random black splotches, also painting part of the exhaust and brackets.
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