I collected my Estoril S50 (Sep 98 build) back in September 2013. It’s been a busy winter 2013 and spring 2014 so thought it was about time I started my journal on here. As a 7 year z3 2.8 roadster owner I’m pretty familiar with most aspects of the coupe although the ///m specific elements are new to me.
When I viewed the car it was obvious that it had been owned by a driving enthusiast and had been cherished mechanically but it definitely lacked something in the washing & polishing department. There were plenty of stone chips, the sill covers showed all the signs of mud build up and the mirror bases were corroded. Having said that it was clear that the wheels had been recently refurbed. Critically, the diff mount and boot floor all looked sound. Inside it was pretty good with just some wear to the driver’s seat bolster. The previous owner had had the car for 14 years, it being previously run as a dealer demonstrator and it was showing 56k miles. With a decent heritage and history I was content to take the car and get to work on freshening up the paint.
Day 1 pics:
I quickly decided that I wanted to get the car resprayed and having visited several bodyshops settled on Gaskell Motor Bodies in Blackburn. The owner (Nick) was knowledgeable and had tackled several similar jobs on classic BMWs previously. Gaskell’s are approved repairers for a number of manufacturers (although not BMW ironically!) and had featured in the BMWCCGB magazine a couple of years ago. We decided on a windows out respray of all bar the roof of the coupe. I wanted to replace the sill covers with new and set about prepping the car before it went to Gaskell’s. I removed the original sills which, as predicted, were full of mud and also removed as much trim as possible before setting off to the bodyshop for paint...
Off we go:
When I viewed the car it was obvious that it had been owned by a driving enthusiast and had been cherished mechanically but it definitely lacked something in the washing & polishing department. There were plenty of stone chips, the sill covers showed all the signs of mud build up and the mirror bases were corroded. Having said that it was clear that the wheels had been recently refurbed. Critically, the diff mount and boot floor all looked sound. Inside it was pretty good with just some wear to the driver’s seat bolster. The previous owner had had the car for 14 years, it being previously run as a dealer demonstrator and it was showing 56k miles. With a decent heritage and history I was content to take the car and get to work on freshening up the paint.
Day 1 pics:
I quickly decided that I wanted to get the car resprayed and having visited several bodyshops settled on Gaskell Motor Bodies in Blackburn. The owner (Nick) was knowledgeable and had tackled several similar jobs on classic BMWs previously. Gaskell’s are approved repairers for a number of manufacturers (although not BMW ironically!) and had featured in the BMWCCGB magazine a couple of years ago. We decided on a windows out respray of all bar the roof of the coupe. I wanted to replace the sill covers with new and set about prepping the car before it went to Gaskell’s. I removed the original sills which, as predicted, were full of mud and also removed as much trim as possible before setting off to the bodyshop for paint...
Off we go:
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