At $33,500, Is This Supercharged 1995 BMW M3 A Super Bargain?

Today's Nice Price or No Dice E36 M3 has a lot going for it, including a honkin'-big Dinan supercharger feeding its S50 straight-six. We'll have to determine if its price tag is one more plus.

If you think about it, no individual has had a greater influence on the modern enthusiast automotive market than Bob Lutz. "Maximum Bob" spent his career jumping from car maker to car maker, and along the way was a guiding force behind some of the coolest and most legendary models we know today. Lutz can take credit for such cars as the BMW 3 Series, the Dodge Viper, Cadillac CTS, and the car we looked at on Tuesday, the 1988 Merkur XR4Ti. 

While at Ford of Europe, Lutz championed the Ford Sierra, a risky replacement for the best-selling Cortina. He then pushed to sell the sportiest version of that car in North America, resulting in the XR4Ti. For various reasons, that plan didn't pan out as expected, leaving cars like our contender as a rare reminder of Lutz's drive and passion. Described as a "time capsule" by its seller, our car carried a $10,000 asking price, which seemed fair to the majority of you who awarded it with a 55% 'Nice Price' win, another notch on Lutz's metaphorical bedpost.

Today we're going to stick with some Lutz lunacy as we look at this 1995 BMW M3 coupe. As we noted, while working at BMW, Bob had a hand in creating the 3 Series. He also, it is said, promoted the company's creation of its M Motorsport division, the progenitor of nearly every marque-specific performance branch in action today.

While the first M3, based on the E30, was wild and weird and four-cylinder-powered, its follow-up, the E36 series M3, proved a whole different beast. Offered for the first time with a six-cylinder engine, and featuring more subtle—but still easily identifiable—bodywork, the second-generation car proved a more cohesive and fully-realized package. It was with the E36 M3 that the model became the benchmark against which all pretenders to the throne have since been measured.

Today's car is an early production example as indicated by its fairly rare Mugello Rot single-stage paint. Named for the Tuscan region north of Florence, and home to the Mugello Motorsports Circuit, Mugello Rot was apparently superseded by Hellrot (Bright Red) halfway through the 1995 production run.

This being an American-spec car means it has the S50B30US engine under its hood, rather than the standard S50 that pretty much everybody else received. Still displacing 3.0 liters, the American engine was factory-rated at 240 horsepower, nothing to sneeze at, but significantly down from the S50's claimed 282 horsepower.

At some point in this car's history, someone decided to leap over that gap completely by adding a DINAN supercharger. A completely bolt-in kit, the blower is claimed to bump the engine's output to somewhere around 340 horsepower at the crank and, remarkably, is California Air Resources Board (CARB) compliant. The cost of the kit alone is around eight grand, so it's pretty spendy.

Fortunately, all the work to buy and install the blower has already been done, leaving an installation that looks clean, as does the rest of the engine bay. A strut tower brace adds both form and function to the space, and there appear to be no leaks. Another plus: the seller notes a slew of maintenance work that has recently gone into the car, including a new radiator, water pump, belts, hoses, all the usual suspects.

Happily, we get to see the car from all angles, including a couple of under-body shots that show it to be just as clean down there as up above. Most obvious are the shiny new power steering lines, but everything else looks tidy and unremarkable.

While presently offered in Denver, according to the seller this was originally a West Coast car, so rust hasn't been an issue. It's not 100% perfect, however, as the seller notes some paint chips in the nose, a small chip in the windscreen, and some delamination in the clear coat on the aftermarket SSR SSF alloy wheels. Honestly, with the M3's stock alloys being so good looking, losing the aftermarket wheels wouldn't be the worst idea ever.

Craigslist

No changes are needed in the cabin. Swathed in leather and featuring Vader buckets in the front, nothing in the interior appears out of place. Naturally, the steering wheel and shift knob for the five-speed manual show a bit of shine, but that's to be expected in a car with 83,051 miles to its name. It also comes with a full tool kit and a clean title, so it's got a lot going for it.

Could the car's $33,500 asking price be one of its main attractions? Yes, that's a lot of Bavarian cream, but then this appears to be a prime example of a now classic model with the added benefit of a secret snail living under its hood. Who wouldn't love that?

Okay, there are probably a few of us out there that would chafe at the thought of sullying the purity of BMW's bench-setting M3, but for those with more open minds, would this incredibly tidy and well-presented car prove a good deal at that asking price?

It's now time for you to weigh in. What's your take on this supercharged super coupe and that $33,500 price tag? Does that feel fair given the car's condition and supposed rare color combination? Or is that too dear for even this nice a car?

You decide!

Denver, Colorado, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.

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