Owning an E36 M3 (or really any BMW for that matter) means that you’ve heard it all. Sayings like “Aren’t BMW’s unreliable?” and “All those cars do is leak oil.” are oh so common. I am a huge BMW enthusiast, but I didn’t start out this way. Growing up there were only two BMWs I had any interest in; the 750IL from 007:Tomorrow Never Dies and the E46 M3 GTR from Need for Speed: Most Wanted. Ironically however, I wouldn’t own my first lightly used BMW until close to 5 years after getting my license.
Upon returning home to Chicago during my college’s winter break, I learned that my recently passed godmother had generously left me a small amount of money, enough to buy a reliable car. Well being the stubborn person I was, I decided that the car to buy just HAD to be a BMW. Specifically, an E38 7-series or an E46 M3, and nothing else would do. This immediately presented an issue because I had barely two weeks to find a car before I had to make a three-hour return drive to campus.
Naturally, it was a bit difficult to find exactly what I wanted. There were no 750il or E46 M3 models in my price range. In fact, the first car I looked at, a seemingly clean 740i Sport, proved that I’d be encountering many cars that were “well used.” My mother, though, had a plan. She told me about a car she saw in a local auto sales listing and refused to tell me what it was. So the very next day, we drove out to the west end of Chicago. And parked right out front, as if it was waiting for me, was an Estoril Blue E36 M3 sedan.
I had never even considered an E36 M3, nor the idea that I could wind up with an M3 in sedan form. After glancing at another car, I took the M3 on a test drive. Now, snow and summer tires don’t mix, but that wasn’t going to stop me from giving it the beans, and boy did the M3 come to life! After the test drive, I was hooked; I wanted to buy the car. If you could have seen my moms face, you knew she could tell she made a grave mistake. The next day I made my journey to campus as the proud second owner of this compact 200k-mile M3 sedan.
I named my newly acquired M3 “Jace,” a character from Magic the Gathering. Jace was something so foreign to me; it was sporty, but not too fast, roomy but not too roomy, and it was just so cool to look at. I was so excited to own a car that stood out from the crowd. Over the next year, things were pretty normal for Jace and I; I had a hard post break-up drive home, my first handful of trips and car meets, and I even joined a Chicagoland BMW group. I truly felt like I was a part of the car community.
Unfortunately, one of the infamous E36 failure points reared its ugly head, and my rear shock blew right through the shock tower over a speed bump. Repairing that damage was expensive, so a friend and I drilled through the old tower and bolted the new piece in until I was able to get fresh metal welded in. You would think that this would have put a damper on how I felt about the car, but it did the exact opposite. I was so intrigued watching the new part get welded in that I began looking into upgrading the car.
Over time, the car became a slow project. This included coilovers, an intake, a shoddily welded exhaust, a wing I painted and never put on, new wheels, and even a manual swap kit that didn’t get put on until 3 years later. I put about 35,000 miles on the car before dailying a BMW from the 90s started to become a hassle. Not long after that, I started to see the first signs of rust. This is when Jace went into storage and became an emergency car for when I had issues with my daily. It was the most reliable vehicle I’ve ever owned and even with the shock tower incident, never left me stranded.
I finally completed the manual swap during the high point of the COVID-19 pandemic when I returned to my hometown after a year of living in California. It was an almost seamless swap, after a ridiculously long link of socket extensions, slamming the automatic into a rolling oil catch, and then reinstalling the clutch 3 times. Jace was like a new man, rowing smoothly through the gears with parts sourced from an identical M3.
After the summer of year six, he went back into storage and we eventually relocated to Ohio. Admittedly, Jace saw a high point of his life after this move; he was the prototype car for many new test parts and slowly, he got better and better. If you’ve never driven an E36 M3, I highly recommend it. The E36 M3 absolutely represents one of the best eras of BMW. I genuinely had fun every time I took Jace for a drive, both before and after the upgrades. Regrettably, my indecisiveness kept me from ever taking Jace to a track to put all my hard work to the test.
Eventually, I wanted to really make Jace unique, and the foundations of a BMW V8 engine swap fell into my lap. Such a large project was a new frontier for me and while it was educational, it ultimately became the reason I had to learn to let go. Maybe it was the accidental damage to the new block, or the difficulty fitting the components into the car, or safety features that had to be removed, or the sheer amount of money I was pouring into the car, but I had to rethink what I was doing.
Many people are able to have projects that sit unfinished for years at a time. Unfortunately for me, that simply was not possible. The car sat for months in a shop that wasn’t mine, miles beyond what could’ve been considered “easily accessible.” Almost every weekend and some days after work, I was working on Jace. I rapidly grew tired of lifting Jace onto jacks and rolling around on the floor.
I got extremely close to finishing the swap, so far as to run the engine, before the car had to be towed back to my apartment. Here it sat outside, unable to move under its own power. It broke my heart, coming outside to see him just sitting there each day as the nice weather was passing by. Additionally, there was the issue of the growing hole in my wallet from this project, and with the impending rust and paint repair, it was only going to get worse.
Letting go is hard. When you build a relationship with a car, seeing it go can feel like losing a part of yourself. I gave myself a deadline, and listed Jace on Facebook Marketplace. A few weeks later, two brothers came and towed him away. I walked back up to my apartment and cried, sitting at my desk staring at my ceiling processing what I’d done.
Jace was the catalyst that fueled my passion, taught me skills, and brought me to amazing people and experiences. Selling him felt like I was abandoning him. But the reality was that this whole endeavor was holding me back. With Jace gone, I was able to alleviate some financial stress, sort out my daily driver, and travel and see people I love. After selling Jace, it felt like I could breathe again.
At this point, I don’t have any regret in my choice. Making hard decisions is simply part of being an adult. Jace was good to me, and I’ll never lose the memories that we made together. If anything, I hope to one day see him ripping down the road with his new owners. While I may never own another E36 M3, I came away ready for a new experience. So as this story comes to a close, I can’t help but wonder…
What will my next project be?
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