I'm fairly certain that I still haven't seen one, as this doesn't look like an M3. (I'd say I'm "100% certain", but it seems like any time I say that I turn out to be wrong. I've learned to "hedge".)
Not that it matters, the E30 Baur convertible is an interesting car in its own right. It's not a common car in general, and here in the US, it's extremely uncommon.
All Baur BMWs in the US came in via the gray market.Baur's relationship with BMW started in the 1930s. In the 1960s they started building BMW 1600 convertibles. This led to the 2002 TC (Top Cabrio), the first BMW with the targa style roof. Baur continued the TC tradition with the E21. Even after BMW started building its own E30 convertible (which Baur designed for BMW), Baur continued to build theirs.
The Baur convertible is very different from any of BMW's own convertibles. Baur kept a portion of the roof structure, which gave the car a roll bar of sorts. You could just open the area above the passengers, just the area above the back seat, both, or leave the roof closed. It looks a bit awkward, but it's a great setup. (Jaguar had a similar setup with the Jaguar XJS Cabriolet. Another car I need to own at some point in my life.)This Baur convertible is a 3 owner car. It was imported in 1991. The seller does not give a lot of info (maybe this car has some M3 parts in it, but it's not mentioned), but includes a bunch of very clear pictures. He also includes a phone number to call with any questions.
Located somewhere in Westchester County, NY, click here to see the eBay listing.
6 comments:
A friend of mine owned a Baur. Neat car.
You are correct, this is most certainly not a M3. It is a 323i.
Funny, if you look at the sellers feedback as a buyer, you can see he has purchased an OEM M3 shift earlier in the year ;). Only on the title it mentions M3, nothing on the description, guessing its just to pull some buyers in. Nice looking car though.
Hi there guys.My name's John and I come from Greece.I am an E30 fan and I currently own 4 of them !!!!Two of them are Baur TC2 and one of these two is a 325iX with auto trans!!!(Rare,only 21 were built with auto trans of the 114 totally produced).Anyway,the M3 was never released as a Baur cabrio only as a full cabrio and it was released in very limited numbers.The only thing that comes to mind right now is that the only case of this car being an M3 is that it could be the 320iS which was the Italian version of the M3.
One E30 ME was turned into a BAUR TC. I have a few pictures somewhere. If I come across them I will post an email adress for requests. Regards, Kevin.
HELP! i have just bought a bmw 323i e30 just like the baur conversion, only thing is it hasnt got baur written on it, anywhere.it is a restoration project and im curious as to what the production history might be, oh yes, im from south-africa.
About 3000 BMW E30 top cabriolets were built in South Africa under license from Baur. I write a blog devoted to the Baur TC1 in the US, and I am very interested in learning about the South African Baurs. I would like to do a feature anthem in my blog. I wouLd appreciate any info you can furnish, including pics of your car, or other cars.
http://baurspotting.blogspot.com/
tom82baur@gmail.com
Thanks!
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