Home Page
Engine Rebuild
Henna 320i
Doner Body
Assembly
Volvo Brake Upgrade
Poly Filled Subframe Mounts
Turbo Project
After wrecking my first E21, I made the determination that even if the damage was repairable, I didn't want to try it for fear the chassis would never be straight again. I started the search for a doner body for all my hotrod parts. The goal was to find a southern car with a clean, straight body, but with little regard to the condition of the interior or motor.
I ended up with an Oklahoma ebay car with over 200,000 miles that was very, very rough for $900 (way too much). The previous owner had a sweet custom zebra skin center console, huge tach mounted on the dash, fire extinguisher on the A pillar, hood pins, and crappy graphics all over including bullet holes, stripes, and fake BMW tuner stickers that read "Speed Lab Motersports: Extreme Performance". Awesome. On the 1000 mile trip home, I had to add 2 quarts of oil every 2 hours on the highway. There was an oil fog on the back of the car, but in the spirit of the rest of the car my buddy wrote "820 HP" in the oil with his finger. Extreme Performance indeed.
E21 photo shoot before tearing the junker down:
From the pics you can see I didn't get the clean, straight, rust free body I was hoping for. I should have sold it and found another E21 but instead spent an entire summer sandblasting, welding, and priming just to get the body ready for paint.
I had Euro rear sheet metal installed while I was at it.
While the new body was in the shop I stripped down the old car and collected a few more goodies to make the new car even better.
After about a year and a half in the body shop, the car was finally ready to come home, minus hood and trunk lid.
Home Page
Engine Rebuild
Henna 320i
Doner Body
Assembly
Volvo Brake Upgrade
Poly Filled Subframe Mounts
Turbo Project