Wot mid life crisis? BMW E64 645ci Cabriolet
Discussion
I've had a few cars in the past (about 47ish) but never owned a V8. With my 40th birthday approaching i decided to treat myself to something a little bit different to replace the current 1 series runabout.
My criteria gradually built up and i considered many cars but kept coming back to the 6 series. I wanted a softtop, auto, preferably a V8, had to have 4x seats and wanted less than 80,000 miles, all for around £10-11k. The wife then decided it needed heated seats and parking sensors all round.
I decided therefore that 996's were too risky, 3200's cost to much to run, S4 looks like a 1.8T and a bit dull, XK8's were declared "too old man" by the boss, we'd had a CLK in the past and didn't really fancy a 3 series.
So after a checking out a couple of cars i found the car you see below, I decided it had to have a black interior as the beige doesn't seem to wear too well, had to have 19" ellipsoid alloys and i quite fancied a Stratus Grey car, but ended up with Sapphire Black! Its an 04 (so cheap tax) with just over 60,000 miles, a couple more owners than i wanted but it came with a full service history backed up by the invoices and all the old MOT's.
I've had the car a couple of weeks so far and it still makes me grin everytime i get in it - i even find myself parking it at the train station car park so i can see it from the train as i come back in - quite sad i know!
The exhaust note is quite throaty without being in your face, the sport button seems to make it a little more pronounced, but its pretty sedate cruising along at motorway speeds. Its a big car but its still pretty agile but it does feel quite wide going down country lanes.
The V8 is superb, it just keeps pulling and pulling, i bottle out before it does!
Anyway, enough waffle, some pics of the car on a country lane blat this morning - its not clean and i love it
My criteria gradually built up and i considered many cars but kept coming back to the 6 series. I wanted a softtop, auto, preferably a V8, had to have 4x seats and wanted less than 80,000 miles, all for around £10-11k. The wife then decided it needed heated seats and parking sensors all round.
I decided therefore that 996's were too risky, 3200's cost to much to run, S4 looks like a 1.8T and a bit dull, XK8's were declared "too old man" by the boss, we'd had a CLK in the past and didn't really fancy a 3 series.
So after a checking out a couple of cars i found the car you see below, I decided it had to have a black interior as the beige doesn't seem to wear too well, had to have 19" ellipsoid alloys and i quite fancied a Stratus Grey car, but ended up with Sapphire Black! Its an 04 (so cheap tax) with just over 60,000 miles, a couple more owners than i wanted but it came with a full service history backed up by the invoices and all the old MOT's.
I've had the car a couple of weeks so far and it still makes me grin everytime i get in it - i even find myself parking it at the train station car park so i can see it from the train as i come back in - quite sad i know!
The exhaust note is quite throaty without being in your face, the sport button seems to make it a little more pronounced, but its pretty sedate cruising along at motorway speeds. Its a big car but its still pretty agile but it does feel quite wide going down country lanes.
The V8 is superb, it just keeps pulling and pulling, i bottle out before it does!
Anyway, enough waffle, some pics of the car on a country lane blat this morning - its not clean and i love it
Edited by mattman on Friday 10th May 18:25
Enjoy and if I was allowed to raid the reserve account I would commit a nice 645i hardtop to the garage! They are an acquired taste but having been driven a distance in a tight 150k example I know they are a better bet than the M3200 or a very shaky XK8 I was offered recently. Still working on it with SWMBO
, just about to get my first v8 soon so keeo an eye out for you around Basingstoke, looks like Nutley if im not mistaken?!?!?Not as bad as I thought - around 19mpg when giving it some but got 29.7mpg on a 200+ round trip to Cardiff last week
Rear space isn't too bad, can get adults in the back but wouldn't fancy a really long journey unless I was sitting behind my wife whose 5ft 4 so has the seat quite far forward
Rear space isn't too bad, can get adults in the back but wouldn't fancy a really long journey unless I was sitting behind my wife whose 5ft 4 so has the seat quite far forward
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