A Little Background Information Jul 2, 2009
A year ago, we received an odd e-mail from a reader. He had an old BMW sitting in his driveway and wanted to get rid of it. He knew we liked them, and he wanted to know if we wanted it. We thought it over and said we'd take it, even if we didn't know what to do with it.
So the car was brought home, and it wasn't quite pristine. The passenger-side door had been hit, the left fender was peeling primer, and the deck lid and left rear quarter were rusted out. The car had no brakes, and the interior was trashed. The fact that the car barely ran was icing on the cake.
We took the car even with these faults in mind, and we've been working on it for a solid year. The body and drivetrain have undergone vast improvements. Today, the car almost the same as when it came out of the showroom. Now it's ready to be modified for weekend autocrossing and track days.
New Shoes Jul 2, 2009
Now that the car was reliable again, it was time to start autocrossing. Because the car was a beater before it came to us, the previous owner had installed Baldini racing slicks. These can be purchased at any Pep Boys, but are only true slicks after about 40,000 miles. Since the tires were both rock hard and a safety hazard, we knew a change was in order.
We replaced the stock wheels and tires with new units from The Tire Rack, specifically TR Motorsports C1s and Kumho Ecsta XSs. These performed beautifully on the track, and they knocked a few seconds off of our times. They look better, too. The old wheels are on Per's VW for now, as the two cars share a common bolt pattern.