MyE28.com

I thought this board might enjoy seeing some before/during/after photos of the upgrades done to my daily driver 5'er over the course of several years of ownership. The car was purchased in 1997 and served as a very reliable commuter car for 10 years, until my reluctance to drive it in snow forced my hand in replacing it with an all-wheel drive, year round role player. Along the way I caught upgrade fever and couldn't resist tweaking it, continuing to make mods and enjoying the process of both improving and preserving one of these great E28 cars. I've since sold the car to make room in the garage for a couple of other BMW's (the fever continues ). The current owner (Alpinamotorsport on this board) has it offered for sale on this forum. I recently found some photos of the car in its early form and scanned them in. Since many of us are engaged in ongoing upgrade projects with our cars, I thought these shots may be interesting to show one example of how these cars can be changed through available mods.

Photos show the transition from its original look:


To its appearance after many mods and upgrades:


Here's a link to the photo slideshow. Comments describe the changes done during its stages of ownership.

http://s618.photobucket.com/albums/tt26 ... =slideshow

Enjoy,
Jim

I like that car. The only thing I'd do is remove the rear skirt. I like the white bumpers a lot.

That was very cool.
Nice job compiling all those photos. What a nice moment for us car-folk.

I went to Jim's house yesterday to pick up the original bottlecap wheels (seen in the top picture on this thread) and I got to see his white M535i again. I havent seen since he first bought it, but lets just say that you are all going to be blown away by that thing! Jim's attention to details and pursuit of perfection are evident in all of his cars. He is exactly the kind of guy you hope to buy a car from--perfectionist with a garage full of Griots products!!

Very neat Jim!!

Nice transformation

WHOAH! What an amazing transformation. From basic to sexy. Nice job, your attention to detail is amazing. Very unique.

I like this car. I also like the rear skirt with the 535is front spoiler, balances the car out I think.

Does any body know what kind of rear Apron Jim has or where to buy one

FYI: I sourced the rear valance unit from Automod in Atlanta around 2001 - 2002. Maybe some of the Atlanta guys can confirm if Automod is still in the BMW aftermarket parts business.

I originally contacted Automod based on a referral from BBS in Germany when I contacted them about availability of their kits. BBS referred me to Automod as the entity who had bought out all their remaining stock of E28 kits (long since sold out). The rear valance in the pictures is not a BBS unit, but one that Automod had molds for and could produce/sell (at least back in '01-'02). It required some minor mods to the US bumper mounting hardware to fit it, but overall quality and fit were good. Not a lot of choices were available for the US bumpers back then (and probably the same now).

Jim

I think some Hartge side skirts would balance it out nicely. I guess it is sold to fund the M535i ?

Great slideshow. Thanks for sharing Jim.

How hard was it to convert from chrome trim to shadowline...did used new / other parts or the original ones painted somehow??

Car looks great...

Hey Jim, very nice car, I also wn an Alpine White and I'm basing your car as a Model

Do you know where you actually bough the Front "BMW" license plate filler strip ??

Please advise

Awesome to see pics of it over the years....wish I'd had the presence of mind to do that with so many cars I've had in the past. Thanks for the slideshow!

Look up bmwshadowline.com that's how most seem to be doing it now. It looks great and lasts if done correctly.

gfoto wrote:How hard was it to convert from chrome trim to shadowline...did used new / other parts or the original ones painted somehow??