BMW Z3M Roadster

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One of a brace of rare BMW Z3M Roadsters in our sale today, both featuring the powerful 3.2 S50B32 straight six engine as found in the M3 Coupe of the same era.

A lightweight, rear-wheel drive BMW with 316bhp, proper manual gearbox and LSD – now there’s something to create a smile and stir the loins of any petrolhead! These cars were quick, really quick, with few driver aids bar ABS brakes and BMW M-Division’s boundless skills with dynamics and handling. They are a riot to drive – punchy, fast and raucous with low-slung, phat styling, pumped arches and wide 17-inch alloys with quad exhausts. If you’ve got it, flaunt it!

This smart Arctic Silver M Roadster is a 1997 model and features a two-tone blue and black leather interior with heated seats and a black mohair hood. It is showing only 31,633 miles on the clock, and while there is insufficient history to warrant this, it has spent the last nine years in storage, an old MOT showing that it had covered 31,226 miles when last tested in April 2009. It was also first UK-registered in 2002 and perhaps spent its first five years somewhere like the Channel Islands where there aren’t enough roads to clock up much mileage, who knows? The overall condition of the car would certainly tend to support the low mileage but you will have to make your own minds up on that score.

The car was subject to a Category D insurance claim in June 2007 (damaged, repairable) and it is not unusual for service records to disappear in these circumstances. As it stands, all you get is a V5C, one old MOT, a couple of invoices for service items and an MOT until November 2019 with one advisory for an 'insecure number plate'. The wheels have recently been professionally refurbished in gunmetal and new tyres have been fitted all round.

BMW M-cars are always good news, and this will no doubt be that too, particularly given its low apparent mileage and overall condition, let alone the power-to-weight ratio. Best of all could be the power-per-pound ratio, given that it is being offered here at no reserve…