For the 1986 model year, thee second generation of BMW's 3-series, the E30, received a light styling upgrade. The top performance engine's displacement was bumped from the 2.3L M20B23 inline-six to the 2.5L M20B25, and the zoomy six was made available in North America for the first time. Finally, the convertible became a factory production offering. (The aluminum diving board bumpers wouldn't get replaced with more compact body-colored units until the major '87 mid-cycle refresh.)
In the go-go years of the mid-'80s, the 325i...especially the cabrio...was the "it" car for yuppies to have. If you were making a Brat Pack teen movie and wanted everyone to know the antagonist was a stuck up jerk of a rich kid, you'd have him drive a 325i. Its popularity even exceeded that of the 944 and the only reason that Miss Christina in the opening lyrics of David + David's smash hit "Welcome to the Boomtown" didn't drive one instead of a 944 is that "Cabriolet" doesn't rhyme with "pores".
They were zippy, responsive performers. Even the sluggards at Consumer Reports could granny-shift their way to a ten second zero to sixty time
The Cinnabar example seen here was photographed with a Hasselblad Lunar and a Sony PZ 18-105mm f/4 G OSS zoom lens in September of 2017.
I was in the Chicago suburbs from mid-1985 through 1989 and it seemed like the 3-series was everywhere!
ReplyDeleteYeah, the first one I drove was one I was repoing in late '87 in the wake of Black Monday. First car I'd ever driven with a built-in car phone.
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