Cool little corner of the market you guys have carved out for yourselves. Makes me wish that Toyota had done a wagon version of the Celsior / LS400 back in the 90's...
Like stories like this? You’ll see every article as soon as it's published by reading the print edition of Grassroots Motorsports. Subscribe now.
Sure, we’re all about the sportiest of sports cars, but we still have a soft spot for wagons–especially oddball wagons fitted with manual transmissions. Unicorns, they’re often called.
Jason Saini of Chicagoland’s Greenwood Motorsports and Wagons knows the fascination well. “I guess I would just say my title is some kind of manager, but it’s really whatever the day calls for,” he quips. “We don’t have a dedicated sales staff, so I may be selling a wagon one moment, and searching for a rare part for a restoration the next.”
Like many of us, Saini’s motorsports career started with autocross. Unlike most folks, however, he quickly scored a pair of SCCA national championships. He soon expanded into road racing with the MX-5 Cup, which led to World Challenge and the Continental Tire Challenge. In addition to his motorsports activities‒plus the shop’s more traditional performance work, including the onceover they gave our new Corvette project car–he now spends his days hunting wagons.
“Every enthusiast and racer I’ve met at least gets the station wagon thing. Having spent some time outside the automotive world, professionally, I had been helping a friend after-hours complete some projects. One night, over a few IPAs, we looked around at the building we were in–that he had just expanded–and he said, hey, how about we start a wagon-only dealership and performance shop here? The rest, as they say, is history: We opened up in early 2016 and have been working hard to build our business. The big advantage that we have is that the owner is an enthusiast, racer and car dealer with several new-car franchises, so from a resource standpoint we are very fortunate.”
“Patience is key when you’re looking for these wagons. We’ve had customers wait nine months for a manual transmission 5 Series E61 BMW wagon. That’s mainly because between 2006 and 2010, there were only about 700 of them imported here. And even more rare are the rear-wheel-drive, manual transmission E91 3 Series, which make up only 429 of the 700,000-plus 3 Series cars brought here from 2006 through 2012. We really are looking for a needle in a haystack, and we’re proud to have offered a large percentage of those 429. At any given time, we have at least one or two in that configuration, and we’ve sold two of the holy-grail of BMW wagon, the E91 with the M-Sport package. But we also have sold vintage Volvo wagons, rare Audi wagons, and right now we have one of 97 W8 Passats imported here with the manual transmission.”
“As it turns out, a lot of what we do with these wagons is a form of restoration. They don’t sell, for instance, a six-cylinder, manual-transmission BMW wagon here anymore. So we find them, restore them cosmetically, and improve them as well. Often we’ll add suspension, wheel and tire upgrades and the like on top of making it look new and doing all the appropriate preventative maintenance.”
Greenwood Motorsports and Wagons
gmswagons.com
(847) 514-9961
Cool little corner of the market you guys have carved out for yourselves. Makes me wish that Toyota had done a wagon version of the Celsior / LS400 back in the 90's...
before christmas I almost scored a 9-3 manual turbo wagon.. it was just too rough for what he was asking
Is this place still in business? They have something listed in inventory on their website that I'm interested in, but none of the communication paths are working, and 1910 Greenwood St in Evanston IL now lists another business at that address (with a suspiciously similar website design).
My best friend has a factory manual E39 528iT which were imported into the US in single digit numbers from what we can find.
My friend bought an E39 525iT manual last year, but it overheated and he decided to rebuild the motor, but has put it off for almost a year. It drove really nice, but he really needs to get it fixed to daily again.
I used to have a manual E91. I did a fly and buy to get it, and I loved that car, but I hurt my knee and had to sell it. I still miss it. 
FYI, Greenwood Motorsports is no more. Just talked to the guy that used to run it. Luckily the car I was looking at (2004 BMW 325xi Touring with a 5-spd) is still available and now owned by a local dealer network!
Always sad to see someone go under.
I wonder what happened?
....and of course I tried to see if one could find a RWD manual wagon and of course they are around but hard to find. OUtside of CTSVs the BMWs are far and few in between. Two showed up as manual but they weren't... And one was a proper manual, but it's a 2011 328i wagon with 36k miles with M package for.... $40k!!!!!!!!!!
They can keep that one!
Displaying 1-10 of 13 commentsView all comments on the GRM forums
You'll need to log in to post.
