Edit May 10th, 2019: the car is under new ownership.
"Das Einhorn - LebensmittelgeschäftWägon" ? ? What ? ?
Well this car is a unicorn: the mythical BMW V8, rear wheel drive Manual transmission Wagon: a 1994 530i touring to be exact.
Unicorn in German translates to "Das Einhorn" and Grocery wagon = "LebensmittelgeschäftWägon "
I did a made scramble to buy this thing when forum member WillHoonForFood posted it in the classifieds section for $1100 ( here for reference ). Because my wife is Awesome, an epic family roadtrip from Indy to Duram, NC ensued which contained fun, tears, vomit, picnics, an offroad excersion, diarrhea, church and sleeping in cars. Details in a separate thread.
Back to the car. It's a rust free souther car. It's got flaws sure, but it's also go good solid bones. Because 2018 is the year of the Wagon sub-class I'm going to try real hard to get this unicorn there. Ok, since a build thread is worthless without pics here you go:
The car has flaws for sure: it spit out a spark plug at some point denting the hood, and has been helicoiled back in. It also only has one working window, and NO A/C! Which made for a very hot 10 hours of driving home in ~90 degree weather. The interior needs some deep cleaning, the door cards are trashed, having the typical E34 weak glue, the headliner is missing from the center, and third gear synchro is going out, but its a rust free unicorn. More pics:
Look how clean, no rust it is down here:
Ooooh, 3 liter V8- get those mufflers off of there!
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:
Ooooh, 3 liter V8- get those mufflers off of there!
Yes, it needs more V8 sound. It's very quiet right now which is great for highway cruising, but not for spirited driving.
Friend of mine had an E34. Always thought that was a good looking wagon. This should be fun to watch.
Just posting here to keep my eye on the build thread. Looks awesome, and stupid clean underneath. Good score.
The guy I bought the Einhorn from is a real enthusiast too. I introduced him to the forum here, and he followed along with the first part of the adventure in the classified ad. Let's call him Mr T. Anyway, he bought a different unicorn to replace this one. A fairly new Audi wagon with the 4.2 V8 & of course, manual transmission. He was very transparent about the car's condition when listing it and provided a thick folder of receipts from previous work he and other owners had done over the years. I think he'll be checking in on this thread from time to time, so let's see if he creates an account and posts......
Indy-Barely Functional-Guy said:
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:
Ooooh, 3 liter V8- get those mufflers off of there!
Yes, it needs more V8 sound. It's very quiet right now which is great for highway cruising, but not for spirited driving.
cutout's can fix this easy, nice quiet driving for long trips or noisy roaring v8 for fun driving. I did this on my 1.8t A4 and it was fantastic
Looking forward to your "build travels" with this. Seems like you did a bit of alright. What exactly is the plan?
Looks like all the issues are cosmetic, and given how clean it is underneath, if you paid Challenge money for this, you got a heck of a deal.
Dirtydog said:
Looking forward to your "build travels" with this. Seems like you did a bit of alright. What exactly is the plan?
I would like to take it to the challenge and have fun. But I don't want to destroy the character of the car. It's special and I intend to use it as my daily driver with some modest updates and improvements.
In reply to Tom_Spangler :
Yes under budget, $1100.
Bring it to the challenge please. I want to see what i missed.
You are definitely bringing that to the Challenge. We can caravan in our beater wagons from Indy down to Florida.
Dusterbd13 said:
Bring it to the challenge please. I want to see what i missed.
I was driving from the mid coast of NC to DC that day but didn't see the post in time. Otherwise, I'd be the one starting this thread.
Keep us updated Indy!
Indy-Barely Functional-Guy said:
In reply to Tom_Spangler :
Yes under budget, $1100.
Hooooo-leee crap. Well bought, sir.
Mr. T sent me off with these goodies in the back.
He never got around to installing this.
So I'll go ahead and do it.
Notice the tear by the clamp?
It's a bit weepy up here:
And this green puddle ! .... May explain why it keeps emptying the over flow tank.
Went ahead and cleaned the mass air flow sensor.
You're going to daily drive that unicorn ? Won't the winter up there bring the rust ?
And it's installed.
And found the official color tag while I was in here:
Oxford green metallic.
In reply to Cousin_Eddie :
Well, that is the conundrum isn't it. Winter driving will certainly eventually bring on the tin worm. So I'm going to try to not use it in the winter and keep a beater. But after all it is a car and not a perfect one, it has 226,000 miles on the clock.
In reply to Indy-Barely Functional-Guy :
Howdy, I guess I’m the Mr. T mentioned above. Just joined this thread to see how the beautiful green machine is coming along. I know that Indy will be far-less neglectful than I’ve been with it, lol. It’s been wonderful to watch it begin it’s new life. Anyhow, nice to be aboard the forum here, and I guess for the record my current Einhorn would be a 2002 S6 Avant with the 6-speed tranny from an A6 and a new RS6 clutch, mufflers deleted for a nice throaty growl. Previously I owned a true unicorn: a ‘91 Audi 200 20v Avant, only station wagon I know of that was ONLY offered with a 5-speed. Sadly it is no longer with us. Though overall mechanically-inclined I have done little wrenching on my wagons outside of window motors/regulators, oil, trunk hatch shocks etc, mostly due to an over-enthusiastic experience with an ‘86 GT coupe (non-quattro) where I might’ve better gotten more-qualified hands to service some things. I’ll sign off here, but I’m liking the overall vibe on this site a lot.
In reply to Waggoon :
Glad to see you joined up. You truly are among like minded gear heads here. This is a great place to hang out, waste time, learn a thing or two and share automotive passion.
Out in the garage tonight, I went ahead and removed the engine plastic cover. I've never been a fan of covering up the mechanicals of an engine. Here's what I discovered:
intake looks a lot like an LS1
