I'm going to hazzard that if you know a csl owner and parts are being made to order... They can be had. :whistle:

I cannot remember who posted about why the CSL never went to the USA (a few pages back in the mire) but I thought the reason was more safety orientated than emmisions.

They should really do what Rolex do and only replace parts like for like so if you cannot give them the old ducktail boot then they will not give you a replacement.

Where is the love?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpYeekQkAdc

Pip :whistle:

I can see both points of view, but I have to say, I'm with Yanto on this. The fault is with BMW, not people wanting something as close to a CSL as they can get. At the end of the day, you can clearly see these guys' passion for the cars we love as well - hell, they're building replicas that are costing them more than it would for us to buy the real thing :notworthy:.

We should consider ourselves lucky that we can have the real deal and continue to lobby BMW to ensure the parts remain available for ALL of us. At the end of the day in this scenario, EVERYONE wins - from the small companies that produce the parts for BMW, to those that want a real CSL but due to the country they are unfortunate to live in, are denied this.

If you think about it, they're actually doing us a favour, as BMW wouldn't bother producing the parts if there wasn't the demand for them - I personally believe the fact that there has been this demand for all these parts has kept production of them up for longer than it would have, if other E46 M3 owners hadn't been buying these CSL specific items.

I suspect that production of a lot of parts would have been ended long ago if BMW had built up a stock-pile through not selling to anyone but real owners. When production stops, that can be catastrophic, as these small companies DEPEND on these orders and could go to the wall without continued demand for products. Once this happens, the ability to reproduce a specific part can be lost :(. So while there is this demand for parts for our cars, production remains (relatively) constant. I certainly wouldn't want to lose that just for the sake of being elitist - we can all identify a real one just from the VIN, so it's not like we have to be wary of having a copy car passed off as a real one, so I really don't get what the issue is with some of you - as per the above, I think you have got it wrong about the supply issue - 100% it would be worse now IF BMW had stuck to their guns and only supplied real CSL owners.

To "paraphrase" the M guys we met last week in Munich... It's the American buying public who didn't see the E46 M3 Touring necessary in the USA... and for the record it's the general ignorance that I find a little offensive :banghead: ;)

hi, think a main concern would be the preservation of the tooling for the various parts. The carbon bits in particular were from independent suppliers??The specialist companies involved in the manufacturer of these parts (bumpers - in Slovakia? caught a glimpse of the sticker the other day) could be identified and contacted? make a bit of dialogue. Whats to stop a group of entrepreneurial CSL owners commissioning and supplying these parts in batches from the original manufacturers? 'New Parts' section on CSLR?

Didnt the Ford boys do a similar thing with the 18in monte wheels from Compomotive?

Hey if there's a couple of bucks in it CSLR might as well profit from the unfortunate individuals who want to modify(spoil) perfectly good M3s......just kidding ;-)

BMW would hold the rights to the moulds and would not allow it IMO.

Not quite, they're a close copy of the OZ rally wheel, but in alloy instead of magnesium and because it was out of production, OZ didn't seem to mind providing that it wasn't sold as an "OZ replica" or with OZ badging from the manufacturers / suppliers. This is why it is colloquially called the "Monte" style wheel, as it is the 18" version of the OE 16" version produced for the limited production run "Monte" edition Escort, so it's not a direct copy of a Ford part.

yes I bought a set of the new generation 1's... which has been described by Mike above...

Lol, the rest of the world, other than one county, wasn't enough to justify a wagon?

If it makes you feel better, the ROW was the reason there was no e46 M3 sedan-- the USA was the only country that bought the e36 M3 sedan in any real numbers.

Ignorance like not being able to spell "paraphrase" :bigcry:

That's exactly right :banghead: :hahaha: