This 1988 E30 BMW M3 just sold for $250,000 on Bring a Trailer
Where is the line between "enthusiast" and madness? We may have just crossed it. An 8,000-mile 1988 E30 BMW M3 sold today at Bring a Trailer for $250,000. That's right, a quarter of a million dollars.
Now yes, it's a nice-looking car, done up in Zinnoberrot red with tan interior. Yes, it has been driven a mere 250 or so miles per year — and it rolled out of Germany years before the Berlin Wall came down. Yes, it's done up in desirable M finery like a factory Sport Evolution spoiler and basket weave wheels. It's even said to have a clean Carfax. The interior is spotless, and you could eat schnitzel off its 2.3-liter inline-four. The car in its day made 192 horsepower and 170 pound-feet of torque (though given its time-traveling nature and gavel price, you could say it's never had a finer day than today). It really is fabulous, and all that an E30 connoisseur could hope for.
But $250,000?
To grasp just how much of an outlier it is, check out the chart of BaT E30 M3 sales. That's our car, way up there in the right-hand corner where the red arrow is. The previous highest sale appears to be just north of $100,000, and even that one was an outlier:
There's a lot of chatter in the BaT comments, of course, about the high price. But one commenter wisely points out that he lost more than $250,000 in the stock market with nothing to show for it, and at least the buyer has this beautiful car. Another notes that there's probably a great story involving this particular car and particular buyer that made it a must-have. The winner was newly registered on BaT, probably expressly for this car.
If you have the cash and the kismet, then it's nobody's business but your own.
Still, wow.
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