There are few cars as iconic as the BMW E31
…better known as the original 8 Series. When this car was released in 1990, it took the world by storm with its unique pillarless, wedge-shape, remarkable drag coefficient, and best: a V12 powerplant. If you’ve taken a look around this site at all, you’ll notice that I love V12 engines, its why I keep buying them. But all of the 750iLs (with the exception of this one) do not amount to the sheer elegance, wow-factor, and feeling of pride that this one car evokes. Here’s the story on how I found and purchased one of my all-time favorite cars.
Before I begin, let me say I’d known about this car for at least 6 years prior to purchasing it. Who told me where it was, I couldn’t possibly begin to remember; but 6 years ago I visited a local body shop’s back yard to see if the car was really there. Much to my amazement at the sight of it, there was this:
However, at the time, they wanted far more money than I was willing to spend on such a car that, despite its pedigree and my wide eyes, needed a lot of work to become roadworthy again. In retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t buy it back then even though it would’ve been slightly less work, time and effort — the asking price, still as I’m writing this, and inflation considered, still hasn’t come out of my pocket for this car in my 4 months of owning it.
My acquisition of this car truly was a testament to the virtue of patience, as I was able to pick it up for 20% of what they were asking and a fraction of that from which the car was originally priced new. Many have opinions on cars that sit idle for years especially in the elements, and they aren’t particularly wrong, but those people also aren’t used to redesigning, reengineering, and rebuilding a car. As proven many times over and on my personal cars, I only need the canvas on which to work as an automotive artist and the rest comes from me — that said to say that I’m not afraid of battling time’s affect on cars. Not on paint, not on electronics, not on mechanical components. As Marie Forleo says, “Everything is Figuroutable” to me and the juice usually proves worth the squeeze, tangible or intangible, as wisdom.
In the summer of 2023, I sold four cars in a relatively short period of time: a 2002, a 540i, a 740iL and a 750iL. Doing this left me with fewer projects(yay), but also a little bit of boredom, with my personal cars being in a satisfactory state. In other words, I needed something creative to do with my hands. Worst case, I’ll sell it. But what should it be? I sat and went over my mental map of potential buys, weighing out pros and cons of each, and then I remembered that an employee of the shop recently mentioned a red BMW in the back they wanted to get rid of…
The 8.
There are four ways I thought about this car before buying it:
Flip - its hard to lose money on an E31. Just knowing where it was is worth something.
Restore to original - according to my pictures, it was mostly there, and the shop said it drove to where it sits and values are only going up[consider Michael Jordan’s former E31 850i that, as of writing this, just recently sold]. That’s some considerable meat on the bones for this idea.
Part out - while more tedious, it was a feasible option in terms of return. Not really what I had an interest in doing.
Do what I want with it, build it my way. More of an investment of time and finance, sure, but this is an icon we’re talking about here. Worst case, I have an old 8 Series. Best case, I have an 8 Series. Both are wins.
I drove out to the body shop the next day to see its current state, and how much they’d come down on price after all this time. When they told me, I went home and started to reach out to some people, to do some research on it and arrived at the conclusion it was too good not to buy. Within the hour, I went back with money in my hand for the title and called my guy Cam, of Wright Way Hauling & Transportation, to pick it up and get it to the house. It happened! I own an 8 Series, and for a steal at that.
BUT We’re not out of the weeds, yet…
It was resting in brush that dwarfed both me and the car.
There were trees.
There were thorns.
There were critters.
It was going to have to be extracted, not simply driven or pulled out. This was a recovery mission underway. I set out to the tractor supply store, and then home to grab the trimmer along with my reciprocating saw to cut the thicker brush.
Observe the dent in the bumper, where the tree had, for some reason, grown into it. Had I waited much longer, nature would’ve ultimately had its way with this car. However, about an hour of a delicate dance between cutting and the brush cutting me back, I had it clear enough to be free.
It was time to take it home.
Cam arrived soon after with an empty trailer. We got it hooked up, dragged out, and strapped down.
At this point, I was certainly excited. It smells like nature (and its rodents) has had its way with it, there is paint missing, there are dents and dings…
But it wasn’t until I was behind it on the trailer that it really set in with me that I’d bought one of the most iconic cars of all time; one of the best that BMW has ever built. Behind it, I could visualize what it would look like moving on its own in traffic, and man, if it wasn’t something special.
I realized on the way home that this was, by far, the coolest thing I’ve ever bought.
Then, at the house as it pulled up, seeing it with my E38 & 540i helped further cement the reality of this car into my head. What a trio.
I really have an 850. The pillarless design. The V12. The $1 billion development cost. I have IT.
Per tradition, the first thing to do was document it and its contents, and then clean it — at least have it be breathable and somewhat sanitary while I’m inside of it. I pulled the seats and cleaned the carpet as well as I could for the initial few rounds of shampooing. Even found a guest in the trunk.
Next up was to see if I could get it to run. I checked the oil, put a pair of new batteries in it, fresh fuel, some seafoam fuel treatment and gave it a whirl — No start, but no surprise. I sprayed starting fluid into the throttle bodies and cranked it over again, this time revealing life in this 12-cylinder for the first time in over a decade. At this age, and length of sitting, the fuel pumps tend to go bad; its a thing. I pulled a pair of fuel pumps from one of my e32 750iLs(if you’re an e31 owner reading this, they are the identical Bosch units an e31 uses for much lower price, you just need to be careful when removing them from the housing).
Voila! I have a running 850i. We’re making progress; we’re further than sitting in a field encompassed in brush. I’m listening for odd noises and looking for leaks when a God-awful groan erupted, which turned out to be the power steering pump absolutely begging for fluid. Having been a connoisseur of v12s for many moons at this point, of course I had some Pentosin mineral oil on-hand. The general rule of thumb is you can’t own an old V12 without it.
This alleviated the groan and now it was time to see if it moved on its own, and it did! Emboldened by this progress, I decided to take it for a slow and short drive to test the transmission. It did okay, but not the best — while it was running smoothly, my prior experience in my 750s allowed me to recognize that it was only running on 6 of the 12 cylinders. There are a few possible culprits of this, so I got to work and found out that one of the pulse generators was bad, so I reached into my ever-expansive arsenal of v12 parts and grabbed one. Doing this woke the car up in a way most pleasant to the ears! I drove it again, and did it deliver. All four windows down, sunroof open, dust blowing about… this thing was such an incredible treat to experience. To think, just a few hours of work and I had a running and driving 850i.
This was unreal.
Not being far from a gas station, I decided to go ahead and drive it there and see how it did. It got lots of looks (duh, its an E31!) and did swimmingly.
I had to go show a friend around the corner, who happened to be the gentleman that bought one of my E32s and made this car possible for me. He was equally enthused.
Next, and adamantly, what should have taken priority, was to get the brake lights working. I initially chalked this up to the General and Relay Modules needing to be rebuilt, but upon driving it, I learned that the cruise control worked. The aha moment happened when I came to slow down, and it didn’t cut the throttle as usual. Hmmm…
This led me to inspect the brake switch, which turned out to have the improper plug connected to it. Swapped it for the correct one, and we have brake lights!
I thought I had gotten it mostly cleaned up, until I pulled the rear trim panel back to play with its design. It turns out there are yet more gifts from the mice…
But, I have a knack(and the stomach) for this type of thing.
With the nests out of the way, I was left with some exposed wiring. Some just barely hanging on, some chewed all the way through.
It looks worse than it is — there were only about 5 wires damaged, and it was pretty clear what went where; especially considering how familiar I am with the way old BMWs are wired. I cut the damaged parts back and used the same colored wires from an old BMW harness I use for … spare wires. Fixing this didn’t elicit much change in the car’s behavior, but now I know I won’t be blowing fuses as I hit a bump or shorting components out, or worse, starting a fire. A little bit of insurance, if you will.
I moved on to deeper cleaning in the spirit of having found that rat’s nest, in tandem with recalling driving it into town in the cold and I had to use the defroster. On the upside, it works; on the downside, the smell... I removed the vent to find this lovely nest awaiting:
The best part is that upon putting the vacuum in there to remove it, it kept coming. The entire vent was full of a fine natural blend of insulation, twigs, acorn shells and the finest hair you can find. I sprayed APC in there to disinfect anything and ran the ozone machine with the HVAC system running to circulate and get anything left in terms of smells and bacteria. The car should smell much better now; if not, I’ll be visiting the forward side of the heater core anyway to get what may be left of the nesting. From here forth, I ought to be able to run the HVAC system without being blasted with putridity.
SEASON’S GREETINGS
A little while goes by, and I see designer Ronnie Fieg post a model of an e31 850CSI on his Instagram.
The post goes crazy. This gives me an idea: I should remake this model in real life. How fun would that be?! I scour Facebook Marketplace and discover someone is giving away a faux tree to the first person to come get it. Sold. I get home and affix it to the 8, not worried about scratches, because what paint, right? I used a 12v inverter to power the tree from the inside. It looked ridiculous, and for that, I loved it.
I then built a camera rig to attach to the hood, put insurance on it, and braved getting it downtown to take my shots.
I’d say it was successful and a great way to wrap up 2023.
2+0+2+4=The year of the 8.
Winter is in full-swing in Missouri meaning there’s plenty to be done inside. I find this a great time to hop on the laptop and design some things, to execute some ideas I’ve been sitting on that are just perfect for this car. The interior is a space I believe could benefit from some updating for multiple reasons, but at least to bring it up to my standard.
As I mentioned earlier, the best part about starting with a basket case of sorts is that you’re already at(or beyond) most people’s rock bottom, and the only way this can go is up — I have full room and confidence in my ability to bring this thing back to life, and then some.
One of the first details I know for sure I want to execute is the speaker grilles. The newer BMWs with the Bowers & Wilkins sound system utilize stainless speaker grilles with a gorgeous fibonacci/phyllotaxis pattern, and I’ve wanted this for myself for some time. I went to the dealer for some inspiration:
I came back home and drafted this up for the door speaker to bring it out of the 90s and into this century. I’ve been in talks with some local engineers and we all agree the project is a go, pending a few tweaks.
But, it only starts there. Similar to my 540i, I want to bring ambient lighting into the equation along with wood trim(unlawfully expensive secondhand for E31s). Rolls-Royce, a common inspiration for me and my cars, has a canadel wood paneling they use in their newer models. I love the diagonal orientation of it and may do something similar in The 8. Observe:
My interpretation uses the design that’s pretty much already there, but brings a touch of class into the cabin by using a veneer in place of leather panel within the top stitching, in addition to veneer where the factory installed wood trim on the lower doors and dash. I like the visual continuity it provides in tandem with the pillarless design of the windows, the idea is to have that cozy feeling continued at night.
The inspiration for the wood to “float” on top of the panels came from Mercedes-Benz:
After designing this, it turns out that Bentley uses an almost identical concept to create a sense of motion and continuity in their Continental GT’s interior, so I’m confident that I’m on the right track. Whether or not I’ll utilize wood trim in the middle, I haven’t decided yet.
I picked up some Birdseye Maple veneer to play with and see if I can figure out how to make my own wood trim, unable to source original trim to refinish. I’m not yet sure which species of wood I’ll end up with, but I’ll keep digging.
Using knowledge gleaned from refinishing my E34’s wood trim, I cut and formed an aluminum panel to stick the veneer to. Then the veneer was cut to shape and steamed to loosen it up, then glued to the panel. Much to my surprise, it actually worked! Do note that this is a test piece for proof of concept, and more will be made but I’m excited with how well it came out for my first time making a wood panel completely from scratch. I also threw some undiffused LEDs behind the piece to see how close I was to the original idea, and I’d fare to say I did pretty well with the overall idea.
I’ve also been working on redesigning the dash to bring it just a hair into the future — much like the E38 that I’ve grown so familiar with daily driving it over the years. I love the balance of that interior — classic and modern with just a few touches that keep it right on the cusp, but in a good way. I want that for this car’s interior experience, as one of my biggest gripes about it is the center stack.
Considering how futuristic this car was in its day, and how it still carries that today, it only makes sense to me to bump it a few notches forward in time without losing its original essence. I studied the E38, the E39, the G15(new 8 series), Bentley Continental GT, Rolls-Royce and Mercedes-Benz for inspiration.
This is what I came up with:
Moving the air vents downward(G15 8)
Moving the media/radio upward in line with the gauges(Benz/RR)
Potentially putting one single sheet of glass across cluster/screen(RR Phantom)
Expanding the width of the plane the climate controls/radio are on(E38 7)
Potentially using E39 HVAC controls to maintain the width(so much wiring for this so I’m not yet sure, but they help bring it forward a few years)
Relocating the fog light switch and deleting the rear defroster(new climate control houses this)
Creating storage/phone charging space where old climate control was and creating a wooden cover for it(G15 8)
Relocating heated seat switches, thus cleaning up area around shifter(e38)
Concepts are nice and all, but eventually you have to brave up and execute; First step is a mock-up of the components. This is where we’re at in actuality: the dash has been cut(I know, scary), an HVAC unit and harness have been pulled from an E38, and the screen was borrowed from my E38. On the upside, the E38’s screen actually plugs right up to the E31’s harness and works like a charm. Moving the vents down is as easy as relocating the air ducts.
Despite the challenges, I really like the overall layout in practice.
I then robbed my R129 parts car of its center vents that were the PERFECT width!
Began turning two into one:
One of the biggest challenges I faced was that of making a smooth transition from the instrument cluster to the screen, but I think once I refine the top corner(at the left side of the vents) as well as where the cove comes down on the left(to meet the other side of the vents) I’ll have a little clearer of a direction on working out the details. What I came up with was to cut away the face of it and sink it back to where the screen ends.
Another mockup:
A cigar break:
Then out for a drive.
I’m liking this, a lot.
Facebook Marketplace Delivers
I managed to find six rolls of various veneers, one of which being two 4x8 foot sheets of African Rosewood that I found just gorgeous. I set the sheets out in the garage & treated them with a homemade veneer softener, then let them sit for a few days. Once the wood had relaxed, I wanted to get an idea for how the symmetrical design would look, so I started in the center with the panel between the two rear seats.
Like on the door, I formed the skin of aluminum and treated/applied the wood using the same process as before.
Satisfied with the orientation and color, I moved to the door & footwell area, then the shifter surround.
I love the sense of warmth it adds to the interior. It will look even better with the color of leather I picked out, but we’ll cover that a bit later.
With the weather breaking, I could finally move on to what would be one of the biggest attributes of this car.
*gets out cutting wheel*
Per tradition, the obligatory post-sunroof-install-drive-with-cigar pic:
Lots of video on it:
& I would drive five hundred more
Continuing to test drive it as well as continue development, I reached a milestone in it. of a thousand miles.
One thousand miles I've driven this car since waking it up from a 15 year nap, so to celebrate, I took it up to St. Louis for it's first official "showing". The reception was fantastic – in a sea of supercars(including a Pagani Zonda), it still stood out; which I guess is a testament to it's timelessness. Having all 4 windows + the(new panoramic) sunroof open, the open highway & a good cigar delivers a special feeling I've not experienced in any other car.
Work must continue though. As fall & winter approached, I set forth to solve some body issues - one of which was the cracking body filler on the right rear quarter panel. I hit it with 180g and media blasted the rest.
…and of course I had to do another one of my favorite, and another central, mods to this car: the quarter panel v12 inlay. I wanted this one to be different from that of the E38, so I took a page from Mercedes-Benz Maybach’s page and made it of polished stainless still with an LED backlight.
A quick photoshop:
I had the letters waterjetted out of stainless steel, which I later polished. That stainless steel was then adhered to a white acrylic which gives it some dimension as well as acts as a diffuser for the LEDs behind it.
Note that I had these made the exact same size as the ones on the e38 & e65 for continuity and development’s sake. I took a dremel tool & file to the quarter panel like a madman and this is what I came up with:
I also covered this process on Youtube: