After much consideration and being distracted by shiny objects in the wanted ads I'm now the very stoked owner of a 1973 taiga green 02. This is my second BMW, the first being a 98 540i which is still my favorite road car. I autocrossed and owned many RX7s over the years and have spent the last 8 years restoring motorcycles, mostly 2 stroke Yamahas and playing with turbo Subarus. I was feeling the urge to build something old, reasonably unique. For the last year I was considering a Triumph Spitfire or GT6 to stuff a Toyota 4age into but failed to find the right candidate. This particular 02 sat in the want ads for about 6 weeks while I tried to decide what I wanted, initially I was looking for an early 5 series to mod but most were rusty and over priced. While my ADD kicked in hard I kept coming back to the 02 in my search figuring it would get snapped up pretty quickly, but there it sat. Finally I decided to drive the hour and a half to go see it, it was rough but all there and came with a few nice extras.I put a deposit on it and drove down 2 weeks later to pick it up, so here I am.
I have no final (like there is such a thing with a car/bike guy) plan for the car yet other than a complete tear down for rust repair. I scored a 1982 320is with a 5spd, LSD and recaros for $700 and I have a set of 40 DCOEs that will probably get installed. I'm hoping for a 2 year turn around, if sooner great but this thing is in need of a total resto. I'm going to probably do it up as a daily driver rather than a pristine restoration. Looking forward to starting this project, getting to know the members of this forum and tapping into the knowledge here as I have done on many other projects/forums. Hopefully I can give something back along the way.
