Two years ago I went to a distant hardware store that was supposed to have in stock a particular item I needed for a home improvement project and in the parking lot I saw the BMW that I knew existed, somewhere, sometime, but had never seen before: The 324d. I took out my phone for the required photo shoot and – dead battery.
Ever since then I had thought a lot about that missed opportunity and I had kept looking out with little hope for what had seemed like a once in a lifetime opportunity. There even were moments when I thought it might have been some feverish dream of mine.
But lo and behold, last week, 2 blocks from my home no less, there it sat, in all its 86 hp naturally aspirated, self-igniting, 0-60 in 16.5 seconds, 103 mph top speed glory: a 80k mile 324d.
I approached it carefully so as not to scare it. It was all there, maybe a little dirtier, a little more used up since 2 years ago, but clearly the car I had seen before. Now how did I know it was the very same car? The license plate holder read the adress of a Polish used car dealership, just like the car that had escaped my lens 2 years prior.
With the necessary respect I came even closer and took a close up of that most elusive of E30 designation signs. Or so I thought.
I took some time to reflect on the E30 and it dawned on me: I had never seen the Italian/Portugese market tax special 320is, I had only ever seen one 323i, I had yet to see an M3 Evo and then I did some research:
There even was a Greece and Yugoslavia only 316s with a detuned version of the M10 engine with all but 75 hp, making this the weakest and possibly most elusive of E30s.
So how rare was the 324d really? Turns out, not all that rare. Out of approximately 2.34 million E30s, some 76.039 were 324d models. Now I was almost disappointed. The numbers of E30 models even rarer than the 324d come in as follows:
318is – 41k
320is – 3745
325ix – 35k
M3 – 18k
Alas, even the 324td came in at only 28k examples! And of those I had seen not exactly many, but more than I can recount over the years. It seems the fate of the lower spec models to disappear that much more quickly.
After much deliberation, the 324d remains a puzzle to me. A contemporary review from Auto Motor und Sport came to the conclusion that it wasn’t really an alternative to the gas powered E30 range so much as an enticing proposition for buyers of compact diesel powered cars in general. Or in other words: It’s not the BMW of diesels, but rather the diesel of BMWs.
Interestingly enough, the 324d just like its big brother 324td were only available in four door guise, causing Auto Motor und Sport to speculate these were aimed at the Taxi market. Now this was before my time, but I would be very eager to find out if these were actually used as cabs in 1980s Germany. Given the amount or non-amount of legroom.
In any case, I felt truly lucky on that day. These CCs seem to be on their own secret paths, disappearing and re-emerging at their own volition, making your day when you least expect it.
It may not have been that rarest of E30 that I thought this was, but you have to save some goals in life for later, right?
As it turns out, there also was an E28 version with that same engine, the 524d – of which a mere 4239 examples were produced, making this the 2nd rarest of E28s after the 2241 M5s.
And if that is still too mainstream for you, how about this one of 298 E34 518g touring ?
So what’s your favourite super-rare and/or forgotten BMW?
What a great find! My grandma’s partner had one exactly like this, same color and interior, throughout all my childhood years until ca. 2001. I still remember very well the 6-cyl diesel rumbling, approaching our dead-end road, and I could identify him coming from a distance. In the end it had close to 300k kms on it. It sounded somewhat tank-ish in my ears (apparently it was much less powerful than it sounded) as I was only used to rough 1.4-1.6 liter Opel engines. He traded it in for a used 320d E46 with a little disappointment that this was only a 4-cyl engine.
The diesel in that BMW makes the baby Jesus cry.
In the 1970s/80’s/early 90’s car diesels sucked IMO. Noisy, vibration prone, slow as hell even with a turbocharger. The fuel stank, the exhaust stank, the whole car stank of diesel fuel.
Emissions were way worse than a gas car. Especially in the way diesels were used in European cities, go drive 1 to 8 miles away, dont let the engine warm up on all those fridgid days.
Diesels pollute like hell on a cold start and those first 15 minutes before they warm up to operating temp.
Yeah Benz had a great reputation of durability with their diesel cars. But if I were buying one new, a 0 to 60 of 20 seconds, the fact that it would not hold 60mph on an uphill grade, even unloaded with the a/c off, man thats some real bs right there
Diesels were widely used in the 80s and 90s in Europe partly because it was much cheaper than gasoline, and, especially because, petrol cars of that time consumed a lot of fuel.
Weren’t the “is” models homologation specials with motorsport in mind ?
I’ve driven an E36 model 325td – pleasant, without setting the world alight.
So how did it sell as a taxi? Complete flop? Niche, mostly in Munich? From a taxi buyer’s perspective it doesn’t really have a first-cost savings over a Mercedes which was the standard, certainly not as much as going VW, Opel or Ford would’ve.
Although I don’t think they are particularly rare I like the BMW 2000 Touring. It was never sold in the US so that made it interesting to my 8 year old self riding in our rare in the US 2000 sedan. Oddly the only E30 I’ve ever driven was the comparatively rare 325iX.
I guess the 324d was aimed at the Mercedes 190D and the Peugeot 405 as the leading diesels in its class and would attract some of the same buyers as the poverty spec gasoline models, seeking the badge at the lowest possible cost.
In Europe and specially here in Greece, you could see 324 diesel and gasoline cars.
A neighbor had one of these 324d, I have traveled with it and remember that, despite being a diesel from the 80s, its ride was beautiful, and of the diesels of the time it was surely the fastest. This neighbor had told me that the speedometer could exceed 180 km/h without problems. If I’m not mistaken it was the first aspirated diesel engine made by BMW and shared with the 524.
It seems like a good car, luxurious and economical in those years.
Better in my opinion to the equivalent Mercedes 190 or 200 and the few Japanese competitors. The Peugeot 405 went on sale a few years later but the first ones could not compete with this BMW in performance.
Its certainly no match for a Pug 405 or Citroen BX diesel in any metric but BMW is mostly advertising rep rather than reality anyway.
Yes, not a good choice for a taxi, given the limited rear leg room. A BMW for cheap diesel drivers. I’d rather forgotten about this NA version. But it is still a six, so it beat the big Mercedes diesel fours in that regard.
So what’s your favourite super-rare and/or forgotten BMW?
Mine is the 3200 CS hardtop coupe, built from 1962-65. What a beauty! It’s the first BMW that looks like a modern BMW, concise, airy, with a low beltline, the prominent horizontal body crease several inches below the beltline stretching across the car, the same (or similar) round taillamps later used on the 2002, and a horizontal grille punctuated by twin kidneys. And of course, the Hofmeister kink, the first BMW to feature it. The interior is equally lovely, with a burled-wood dash and modern details. Every 3-, 4-, and 6-series coupe made since derives from the style of this car.
But looks are deceiving. Underneath all this modern elegance is the early-1950s platform that underlied the ancient-looking 501 and 502 sedans, with body-on-frame construction, a pushrod V8, and a solid rear axle. And it was expensive, limiting its sales. As such, it was almost completely upstaged by the first New Class sedans introduced just months later that had modern engineering to match its modern looks.
Better looker than the very angry-faced 2000CS that followed. The body has more curvature than the very Germanic later car too. Only issue is some gathering of fat down below, like a large old lady: the sills are too heavy, and the chrome cover-up doesn’t. Otherwise, these are lovely. I’d love to see a real one.
So what’s your favourite super-rare and/or forgotten BMW?
The E30 333, a South African market homologation special for Group 1 racing, up against the Ford Sierra XR8 and the Alfa Romeo GTV 3.0