My car has a funny story. I first cross paths with it in 2012, around 4 years before I bought it. It was being advertised for £17K with a rough running engine in Scot-Ads, which is a low rent classifieds paper. I could not afford it at the time but my mate and I went to look at it as he was interested. We found the car under 6" of snow with some very odd modifications; A cushion on the driver’s seat and exhaust rubbers zip-tied to the pedals. Turns out the car had been owned by a physically handicapped guy who was very short, he’d been driving it Short Round style.
The car was bought and the rough running turned out to be a hole in #5 piston. A secondhand engine was sourced from Quarry Motors the car put to a friendly garage for the engine swap. This turned out to be an error in judgment as a combination of under filling with oil and not hooking up the electronic dip-stick mean the engine began chapping after a spirited drive across Scotland. A second low milage engine was purchased from Quarry (Can’t imagine such a thing today but CSLs weren’t as highly regarded back then) and this time round we did a DIY engine swap. After that the car ran perfectly and my mate ran it for a year before selling it to a Texan who had moved to the area.
Late 2014 the above mentioned Texan had his eyes set on a GT3 and was looking to shift the CSL. He was the type of guy who did not care what a car looked like as long as it was mechanically sound, subsequently he’d let the car go to $hit. Front bumper and flippers road rashed to the point of hardy any paint / lacquer left. Rusty front wings. The rear bumper was hanging off and had a massive hole in it. The results of a French farmer ripping out the rear towing eye whilst pulling the car from a muddy Le Mans camping ground. The rear silencer was hanging from a thread. It was filthy inside and out and on top of that had no boot floor repair, just a letter from the local dealer saying inspection showed no issues….Ha!
The car was a mess, but it was mega cheap. I could see all the CSL bits were present and correct and I knew all the bits that needed replacing were standard M3 bits so could be sourced second hand or bought new without any CSL tax. So I bought the car with the idea of doing nothing to it and run it as a cheap track hack……I should have known myself better, it took about two months for my OCD to kick in. New wings, a trip to Redish, many trips to the BMW parts counter, Re-trimmed steering wheel, refurberd flippers (Cheers Mark). Bilstiens, bushings, Alcons. You name it, I’ve done it; or had it done by those who do it best.
I bought the car late 2014 with 78K on the clock. It now sits at 93K. It’s been to Le Mans twice, round the NC500, a handful or Knockhill Track Days and the local Speed Festival two years on the bounce. It’s in fine fettle and I’m trying to get over the 100K mile mental barrier for fear I stop driving it or worse, sell it!
