Hello! I'm Tiago, 24, and live in Lisbon, Portugal. I've been lurking around a few years now in a few E30 M3 related foruns till I stomped on S14Power.com. I truly appreciated the level of the discussions going on here, especially the technical ones. Kudos to you all! I've been dreaming about the holy M3 for at least 8 years now and was pretty much ready to jump the gun a few months back but fortunately for me, I was able to get my priorities straight. However, I'm planning on buying not one but two E30 M3 in a 3 years timespan. I know it's a long time but what's that when compared to the years I've been waiting for it... Till then, I'm in for the ride, just reading around, participating now and then and looking forward to learn with you guys about this wonderful piece of engineering. Cheers Tiago
Hi Tiago and welcome So you are going to have two M3's is that one for the track and the other one for the street ? Or one for the wife and you ? Hope your dreams will come thru Thomas
Bem vindo Tiago! There are a few Portuguese here already although some of them are only lurkers waiting for their project to be ready for their presentation... Hope to see you here often and if you ever need me just say so (I'm in Porto).
Thank you for the welcomes! Thomas, I'm planning on buying a pristine low mileage M3 (leaning towards an EvoII), to keep as a collector's car, and a relatively cheap one, maybe with a shot engine, to prepare and drive around in track days and similar events. Two reasons for this. First, If I had only the pristine example I would chicken out and wouldn't drive it on race tracks let alone pushing it to its limits, while on the other end, If I only had a track rat I wouldn't be truly satisfied knowing that it was a modified and rather abused example of my all time favourite sports car. Second, being realistic, I'll have to sell the cars at some point, and when that time comes I'll be able to somewhat offset the sunk cost on the race car with the premium of the the pristine one's sale... Kiko, thanks for the offer. Glad to see a Portuguese bloke around here and BTW seen your photos and let me tell you what an incredible car you have!! Congratulations! Are you planning on getting national plates? Cheers Tiago
Welcome to you Tiago. Your philosophy with the two M idea is not indifferent to mine. This is what I have done. I wish you well in your E30M3 adventure :121:
Tiago, I'm not planning get the portuguese plates in the near future, no. Probably only when it completes its 25th birthday so that I can get Classic Car creditation and request as number plate from 1988. I have nothing to do with your choices but building a track M3 will be very expensive and will never be ultimately as fast nor as fun as a proper race car. Most people don't realize the world apart between a road car and a proper race car on the track, I recently did a track day in my Mazda MX-5 Cup car and cars like 20k worth of preparation Civic's with K20 engines were humiliated (in several secs a lap) by a mere Mazda with 105 bhp@wheels. If you add this to the fact that a race car will wear its consumables alot less and will be kinder on the tyres reflecting greatly on the running cost. I'd say that if you plan to track now and then (2-3 a year) get yourself a good Evo 2, add it a few extras like a modified sump, a BBK and a set of track wheels but if you plan to be a track freak then I'd say buy the Evo 2, and buy a race car (as a reference a Mazda MX-5 cup (NB) is worth £5000.
