{"id":1,"date":"2010-04-30T02:46:13","date_gmt":"2010-04-30T02:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mcoupebuyersguide.jrmartin.com\/?p=1"},"modified":"2013-04-12T10:51:02","modified_gmt":"2013-04-12T16:51:02","slug":"my-perfect-m-coupe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.mcoupebuyersguide.com\/index.php\/2010\/04\/my-perfect-m-coupe\/","title":{"rendered":"My Perfect M Coupe"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"M — Glenn’s M Coupe at Red Rocks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The 1999-2002 M Coupe is one of the most polarizing designs ever released by BMW.\u00a0 Both M Coupe lovers and haters will boast or disparage that it was designed by engineers not stylists.\u00a0 With nicknames like “Clown Shoe”, “Breadvan”, and “Elf Hearse” even the most serious M Coupe owner has to have a sense of humor.\u00a0\u00a0 While it has many detractors styling-wise, you would be hard-pressed to find one complaining about the drive.<\/p>\n
I, for one, was immediately taken by the design when it was shown at the 1997 Frankfurt Motor Show.\u00a0 It was purposeful and curvy, striking yet classic, and caught my eye like few designs ever have before.\u00a0 Thirteen years later I think it has stood the test of time like few others.\u00a0 The M Coupe is styled so uniquely and without any of the design trends of its era that it looks just as modern today as it did then.\u00a0 When I find my perfect M Coupe, I don’t plan on getting rid of it through any means other than my will.\u00a0 I know because of its uniqueness, it will still be looking good many years in the future.<\/p>\n
In early 2001, a guidance counselor at my high school purchased a silver 2001 Z3 Coupe.\u00a0 It wasn’t an M, but still had all the curves I’d come to love.\u00a0 Each day driving up to the parking lot, I would look to see if it was there and would park accordingly.\u00a0 I always looked for excuses to walk by it.\u00a0 I had a chance to talk to Mr. Graham one day after track practice and he was surprised that I knew everything about his car.\u00a0 He promised one day he would let me drive it.\u00a0 Months later, when the weather improved, I got my chance.\u00a0 At the time, the only manual transmission I had ever driven was my grandpa’s pickup through an Iowa cornfield.\u00a0 In the days leading up to the “big day” I drove several of my friends cars just to refresh my skills, so I wouldn’t embarrass myself in the coupe.\u00a0 Well, it didn’t drive like my grandpa’s truck, nor any of my friends’ cars.\u00a0 While my friends Geo Metro took a firm right foot just to get it up and moving, I had to be light on the gas pedal in the coupe.\u00a0 I successfully pulled out of the school parking lot without an embarrassing stall.\u00a0 I turned on to the country road that ran away from the school looking for some wide open spaces.\u00a0 I babied the car for a while until we came to the end of the road and turned around.\u00a0 Then Mr. Graham told me to stop babying it and punch it.\u00a0 That was when I decided I had to have one someday.<\/p>\n
The Denver Auto Show in March 2001 introduced me to the color Steel Gray that was offered starting in 2001.\u00a0 While I liked the silver on Mr. Grahams’ car, Steel Gray was a much deeper color. It was also going to be more rare as it was only offered for two years.\u00a0 The 2001 cars also brought the 315hp S54 engine from the E46 M3.\u00a0 1999 and 2000 cars have the 240hp S52 engine from the E36 M3.\u00a0 The topper was the display car’s black and Imola Red two-tone interior.\u00a0 I knew then I had found my dream car.\u00a0 While some might argue such an eye-catching car deserves an eye-catching color like Phoenix Yellow or Laguna Seca Blue, when I’m in the purchase for the long haul, I want a color I’m not going to get tired of.\u00a0 The excitement is in the design itself and the beautiful Imola Red interior.<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a>
M Coupe Show Car<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Since that time over 9 years ago, I’ve been in pursuit of this color combination.\u00a0 I always knew this color combination would be a challenge to find, only recently did I learn just how hard it might be.\u00a0 There are only 23 ever sold in North America in these colors.\u00a0 At this time, I’ve only seen four come up for sale. The first came up for sale while I was still in college and did not have the funds, nor the garage to store it in.\u00a0 The next popped up the day my son was born.\u00a0 Yes, I was looking for M Coupes from my wife’s hospital room…they were both sleeping.\u00a0 While it was a decent price, it was in Ohio.\u00a0 Some things will always be more important than any car, so I let it go in order to spend that important time with my family.\u00a0 It was soon sold.\u00a0 The next was listed on Christmas Eve 2009.\u00a0 At first I thought God had given me the perfect Christmas gift.\u00a0 Not only was it my colors, it had 18,000 miles and is a sunroof-delete<\/a> (1 of only 2).\u00a0 The problem came when I saw the price…$59,995<\/a>.\u00a0 A month later, the other Steel Gray\/Imola sunroof-delete coupe came on the market, and this one was only 50 miles away.\u00a0 It seemed meant to be.\u00a0 It only had 7,000 miles and was showroom stock.\u00a0 And while a relative bargain, was priced at $49,500<\/a>.\u00a0 It’s just my luck that the only two cars I had seen in years in the color combination I had pursued were priced $15k and $25k more than any other M Coupe currently for sale (but worth every penny).\u00a0 Both are still for sale, so visit my sponsors and help me buy one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The 1999-2002 M Coupe is one of the most polarizing designs ever released by BMW. Both M Coupe lovers and haters will boast or disparage that it was designed by engineers not stylists. With nicknames like “Clown Shoe”, “Breadvan”, and “Smurf Hearse” even the most serious M Coupe owner has to have a sense of humor. While it has many detractors styling-wise, you would be hard-pressed to find one complaining about the drive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[12,11,7],"class_list":["post-1","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-search","tag-s52","tag-s54","tag-sunroof-delete"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.mcoupebuyersguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.mcoupebuyersguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.mcoupebuyersguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.mcoupebuyersguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.mcoupebuyersguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":40,"href":"https:\/\/archive.mcoupebuyersguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6,"href":"https:\/\/archive.mcoupebuyersguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/6"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.mcoupebuyersguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.mcoupebuyersguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.mcoupebuyersguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}