E23 735i just purchased
Discussion
Unfortunately I am having some trouble with my mac resizing the images for upload - the application keeps crashing. Anyway, here is a photo of the interior.
I saw the car advertised online (I am in Australia btw) and showed the ad to my wife who surprised me by saying "I like those old square BMW's". That was it - it had to be bought. The car was in Brisbane and I live in Sydney so I flew up and the seller met me at the airport. The deal was done and drove it the 11 hours home (I stopped overnight halfway). The car drove really well and was very comfortable on our Australian "highways". A mix of A and B roads for your information.
I saw the car advertised online (I am in Australia btw) and showed the ad to my wife who surprised me by saying "I like those old square BMW's". That was it - it had to be bought. The car was in Brisbane and I live in Sydney so I flew up and the seller met me at the airport. The deal was done and drove it the 11 hours home (I stopped overnight halfway). The car drove really well and was very comfortable on our Australian "highways". A mix of A and B roads for your information.
Edited by Panord on Thursday 20th August 11:36
I have managed to upload another image... I have to restart my mac after each upload
So the car is immaculate but of course it still needs a few things fixing. In Australia we have arcane and differing regulations from state to state when registering vehicles. Because I bought the car in Queensland and wanted to register it in New South Wales I had to have it inspected and given a sort of 'identity check' here. Fortunately it passed except for a perished fuel line and leaking oil pressure switch. I also had my mechanic give it a major service while he was attending to those issues. The only bad news was that the radiator had a small leak in one corner so I decided to replace that. It will be summer here soon enough - luckily the a/c works very well.
So the car is immaculate but of course it still needs a few things fixing. In Australia we have arcane and differing regulations from state to state when registering vehicles. Because I bought the car in Queensland and wanted to register it in New South Wales I had to have it inspected and given a sort of 'identity check' here. Fortunately it passed except for a perished fuel line and leaking oil pressure switch. I also had my mechanic give it a major service while he was attending to those issues. The only bad news was that the radiator had a small leak in one corner so I decided to replace that. It will be summer here soon enough - luckily the a/c works very well.
That is LOVELY! Especially loving the interior. I have an early poverty spec E23 730, it got a fair bit of attention on here so I think yours will go down very well too 
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
Thanks for the compliments everyone.
The car now has 191,000 km (118,000 miles) on the clock. It came with a huge pile of receipts for work done. The owner previous to the guy I bought it from had it for five years and spent almost 30,000 pounds on it! About half of that was for a very high quality respray at a BMW workshop which included replacing much of the exterior trim. There was no rust, but I suspect the paint and trim were pretty weather beaten.
The interior is pretty original but the leather has been refurbished and the wood trim replaced. It would have originally had a straight grain teak veneer but this has been changed to walnut. The car came with another two complete sets of wood trim in the boot.
The guy I bought it from only had for about six months. He knew the previous owner and bought it from him after the transmission had failed. He then had that rebuilt and I suspect he was hoping to make a quick profit on the resale. I only paid approx. 3500 pounds for the car so I don't think he made much (if any) out of it. I noticed it had been languishing on the web for quite a while.
The 1985 model year 735i was available in two specs here in Australia - standard and executive. Mine is the standard version thus misses out on a sunroof, full auto climate control, trip computer, switchable auto transmission, and buffalo leather trim (which never lasted long in the Australian sun).
There are a few faults to be sorted on the car. It has a vibration above 60 mph which I think is a worn tailshaft centre bearing. Also the heater is currently disconnected. There is a problem with the vacuum system in the climate control which sometimes causes all the air to blow onto the windscreen. This seems to occur mainly when accelerating. A loud clunk can be heard as the vent flap bangs shut when this happens. Because the previous owner lived in Queensland he wouldn't have needed the heater anyway so he probably disconnected it to stop hot air blowing constantly. Cold a/c is far more important up there. Anyway, it something I will need to investigate.
Here it is dwarfed by my wife's X3...
I love the centre console on these. Proper chunky switches and buttons
The car now has 191,000 km (118,000 miles) on the clock. It came with a huge pile of receipts for work done. The owner previous to the guy I bought it from had it for five years and spent almost 30,000 pounds on it! About half of that was for a very high quality respray at a BMW workshop which included replacing much of the exterior trim. There was no rust, but I suspect the paint and trim were pretty weather beaten.
The interior is pretty original but the leather has been refurbished and the wood trim replaced. It would have originally had a straight grain teak veneer but this has been changed to walnut. The car came with another two complete sets of wood trim in the boot.
The guy I bought it from only had for about six months. He knew the previous owner and bought it from him after the transmission had failed. He then had that rebuilt and I suspect he was hoping to make a quick profit on the resale. I only paid approx. 3500 pounds for the car so I don't think he made much (if any) out of it. I noticed it had been languishing on the web for quite a while.
The 1985 model year 735i was available in two specs here in Australia - standard and executive. Mine is the standard version thus misses out on a sunroof, full auto climate control, trip computer, switchable auto transmission, and buffalo leather trim (which never lasted long in the Australian sun).
There are a few faults to be sorted on the car. It has a vibration above 60 mph which I think is a worn tailshaft centre bearing. Also the heater is currently disconnected. There is a problem with the vacuum system in the climate control which sometimes causes all the air to blow onto the windscreen. This seems to occur mainly when accelerating. A loud clunk can be heard as the vent flap bangs shut when this happens. Because the previous owner lived in Queensland he wouldn't have needed the heater anyway so he probably disconnected it to stop hot air blowing constantly. Cold a/c is far more important up there. Anyway, it something I will need to investigate.
Here it is dwarfed by my wife's X3...
I love the centre console on these. Proper chunky switches and buttons
Edited by Panord on Friday 21st August 03:09
Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff