Rare E30 M3 Going Up for Auction
The BMW E30 has seen a sort of renaissance of late. Prices are skyrocketing, good ones are becoming increasingly hard to find, and the entirety of the automotive press is singing the praise of this 80s car. I, myself, was checking one out the other week only to find that I was quickly priced out of even a terrible version of one.
Now a few have sold at auction; the first being Road & Track’s Sam Smith’s old E30 M3, which went for a colossal $60,000. That one auction pretty much set the tone for all things to come. This month, though, we are getting a truly special version that will probably eclipse Sam’s car by a fair margin.
This is the 1989 BMW E30 M3 Johnny Cecotto Edition. This is just one of 505 built under this edition, which is named after BMW’s former motorcycle and Formula 1 racer … but he is mainly known for his work behind the wheel of BMW’s touring-car division.
The car has a 2.3L four-cylinder engine with around 212 hp, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you couple the same performance an FR-S has with the lower weight that this E30 has, you have a real stormer.
The entire car is about as clean as you can get a 1989 E30, but the only downside, if you can really call it that, is it has 89,000 miles on the odometer. For a 25-year-old car, that isn’t bad. The auction company is saying $45,000 to 58,000, but I would say it will probably fetch a bit more if the right buyer is in the room.