It only took 25 years to get around to buying one of these things.
Back in the '70s, when I was in my early teens and spent more than a little time with my nose in car magazines, I spent a fair bit of that time trying to convince my parents that they really, really needed a 530i. In the end it's probably a Good Thing they didn't listen to me. BMW had taken a short-sighted and mechanically damaging path to smog controls with their thermal reactors, and as a result the poor US-market E12 530i was a thirsty and sometimes troublesome beast.
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| The Platana Grey 1992 Saab 9000T on the grid at Laguna Seca for a
NASA track school.
Our Saab, with its automatic transmission and throttle-only traction control, is
a lousy track car, but little else - certainly nothing else 135mph-capable
- can match the old 9000's ratio of interior room to exterior bulk. And in the
125000 miles it's accumulated since we bought it new in October of 1991, it's been
very reliable. |
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| Take one stock 1992 Infiniti Q45, add two hours of spirited
mountain-road carving, and voila! one toasted automatic transmission. The original Q45 had heavenly material and assembly quality, an interior unmatched anywhere in the world for pure attractive simplicity, a suspension layout borrowed from the 300ZX in front and throw-away-the-books expensive in back, viscous limited-slip differential even in the base models, and the piece de resistance, a magnificent 4.5L DOHC 32V aluminum V8 (can you picture main-bearing caps with four vertical studs, cross-bolts through the block skirt, and a girdle?) with variable inlet-cam timing, a 6800RPM redline and somewhat more oomph (despite the on-paper ratings) than BMW's 4.4L M62. It would run smoothly and silently right up to its 145MPH limit, still accelerating hard enough at that point to hit its limiter with a thump. However, it also had tiny brakes, a driving position not well suited for humans over 5'3", frustratingly erratic minor control positioning and behavior, and a transmission saddled with grossly inadequate cooling and an electronic controller with second-gear-start software, providing locomotive-smooth acceleration at the cost of performance and transmission longevity.
If you own one of these flawed masterworks, get yourself a big transmission cooler and
a Jim Wolf reprogrammed transmission
controller. And if the driving position suits you, you may want to keep it forever.
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In the early '80s, upon starting to produce an income, I started shopping for a used 528i. In the end, I ended up buying a 1981 Saab 900 4-door instead. That particular Saab was less than great, but over time I've ended up owning two more including the 9000 Turbo 5-door we still have.
In the mid '90s we looked at the then-new E38 740i. It didn't impress me quite as much as I thought it should for the money, and we ended up buying a used Infiniti Q45 instead. Owning the Q was an interesting experience - it's a car of stunning highs and frustrating lows.
The E39 5-series impressed the hell out of me when it was introduced in the US in 1997. Had the spouse been willing to drive a manual transmission, we'd have likely bought a 6-speed 540i then.
Alas, the spouse held out for a slushbox.
At some point in the 1980s BMW forgot how to build a seat. The lower cushions of most current BMW front seats (even the so-called comfort seats) are far too short to suit me - one of my objections to the 740i in 1995 - and without the 6-speed car's sport seats and their adjustable under-thigh support, the 1997 540iA did not interest me.
For the 1998 model year BMW finally knuckled under and made the 6-speed car's suspension and interior trim, including those gorgeous 7-spoke wheels, available on the automatic-transmission cars, so we decided to have a look. Even at that, the eventual decision to buy the thing pretty much happened on impulse - we went through a couple yes we will, no we won't cycles before finally signing the papers.
The indecision was in part because ordering what we wanted would force us to do European Delivery. We wanted Cashmere Beige with sand leather, sport package, sport seats, and folding back seats. To get that combination the car had to be ordered, and since we were well into the 1998 model year and dealers had already shot their allocations on stock-order cars, the only way to order a car was European Delivery. We weren't sure that we really wanted to do this, but in the end the cost savings and availability issues were compelling enough to overcome our concerns about our limited non-English- language skills.
So, off to renew the passports.