Stance Is Everything…. It's all about how it sits

Today’s blast from the past doesn’t really go all that far back, just to a time when GTA e30s were low with wheels were sunk into fenders.

Though now sold this alpine white e30 will be remembered as one of the first e30s in the GTA do go down and out.

While I don’t quite remember the first time Leonard popped up on maxbimmer.com I do remember the reaction he got when he posted pictures of his 325is. Jaws dropped and people gawked. No one could deny that hate it or love it this car was pushing the boundaries of GTA e30 tuning at the time.

Slammed on KW Variant 2′s Leonard’s car sat on 16×9.5 and 16×10.5 BBS Rs wheels with an et of 0 and -3 respectively. These now rare wheels (production stopped in about 91 or so) were originally seven inches wide and shipped in all the way from Germany to the USA before Leonard picked them up.

To get these wheels to fit the rear fenders had to be rolled, flared, and cut, in addition to running serious amounts of camber.

I still remember my girlfriend asking me what was wrong with his wheels the first time we drove behind him on a max cruise, funny to think about that now since she’s pretty up on slams now though she won’t admit it.

It wasn’t just the wheels, height, and m-tech add-ons that set this car apart from the crowd like Randy was one of the first people to run HIDs in smoked ellipsoids on an e30. This was a big deal since at this time HID kits were still pretty costly.

The Euromobile

Leonard also had one of the most immaculate e30 I.C.E. trunk setups I have ever seen. He did it all himself and it looked very good in person.

Having thought my setup was pretty clean this one made me down right jealous, not to mention it was done to match his equally gorgeous interior.

Amazing set up

V.I.P. e30?

Once Leonard’s original m20 motor gave up the ghost (thanks to a pooched head gasket) Leonard went to RMP Motors and had an s50 power plant and 5sp manual transmission swapped in.

This swap made this car a complete package and helped quiet the people who were grumbling about the car being all show and no go.

s50 swapped in

I’m not sure where this car ended up after he sold it but thankfully Leonard is a gifted photographer and images of his e30 threads all over the internet (most notably vwvortex).

Enjoy the collection of photos I was able to scrounge up of this car.

What's to hate?

Leonard had a knack for choosing great locations

stance on point

I almost don't need to caption these

Underground maxbimmer Mississauga shoot

The fender and tire were close friends

Those rear wheels are so wide

I might write about the purple mtech in another blast from the past

I also happened to find this video of Leonard in winter mode (all year round!) on youtube.

UPDATE:

Leonard was nice enough to send me a photo of the car the last he saw it. Seems that the MTECH wheels have been removed as well as the BBS RS wheels. While still very nice looking I much preferred how it looked before.

I am going to guess these wheels are either Type A’s or B-1s.

The Euromobile in it's last spotted configuration

All photo credit goes to Leonard Adam:
leonardadam.com
flickr.com/photos/qimis/
LEONARD ADAM Photography on facebook

Some consider the Stance/Fitment/Flush up-rise a terrible trash bin worthy fad that is one it’s way out, while others acknowledge it as valid facet of the automotive community which is helping the scene move towards a cleaner less is more approach to modification. The dedicated know that it’s all nothing new and and have been doing it for years.

AndreNY had already been going steadily against the grain for awhile when I caught up with his antics around 2005 or so. At this point he had already developed a deep fondness for what was going on in the German e30 scene and decided it was time to bring it the New York with his 325e.

Quite frankly he didn’t make many friends doing it, people called his wheel fitment Mexican, the fact that he chose one of the slowest e30s as rice, his car a bondo bucket and his ride height as impractical. No matter what the haters had to say though his e30 got noticed globally and was even featured in Performance BMW Magazine and is still to this day consistently posted in ‘e30 appreciation threads in forums everywhere’.

Andre sold his e30 and I know it ended up in the hands of a vwvortex member for awhile but I have no idea where it is today. What I do know is that after his e30 he had a number of memorable German rides and I have complied as many as I could find into today’s post (I know an e36 is missing).

Hope you enjoy the work of someone who’s had their finger to pulse of the North American stance scene when it was barley beating.

Andre’s Benz’s

Keeping it German and keeping it classy Andre’s tri stars have always been eye catchers.

This Benz looks mafia ready

Clean and classy

Andres 500e on LMs

Gotta love the LMs on a classic lux car like this

He also had this car on some deep dish wheels, I think these are OZs

Andre’s Audis

Andre’s love for German vehicles is not brand based so he looks to keep it fresh and switch it up, here are some Audi’s AndreNY style.

This is probably the tamest looking of all of Andre's cars

This Audi is sittin on Benz Monoblocks and looks amazing

Andres 5 series

Andre’s 5 series still actually lives on today with a new owner and an new set of wheels but here is what it looked like when Andre had it.

I have always been a very big M Parallel fan my second favorite OEM BMW wheel

Andre was rocking the boser style hood early

AndreNy’s e30

This is the car that made Andre internet (in)famous, say what you want about the man, the bodywork, and the motor, this car it’s still iconic among the e30 community to this day.

Rocking flushed out Type A's early

On most cars I would want the Mtech II sides as well but this works without

This was a performance BMW feature car in its day

Night time shot of the type A's

Later in the life of his e30 Andre switched it up with some S-lines

Andre rollin, not the I lip on the bottom of the mtech II piece to make it lower

The definition of down and out

Hopefully everything is still good with AndreNY today and he posts some photos of his latest euro car because if there is one constant among all his cars it’s that his stance will be dead on point.

The time has come once again for me to reminisce about another ride that I remember from a few years back that somehow disappeared into obscurity. To go along with the theme from this weeks Theme Tuesday iI chose VW that turned a lot of heads in it’s heyday in the late 90s/early 2000s. This twin motored VR6 Golf is one of the first twin motor cars I ever recall seeing and as such completely blew my mind, I had so many questions I wanted to ask the owner but I could never find him.

While I never heard this car run or saw it move under it’s own power I can only imagine it ran because why would someone go through the work of putting an entire second motor in a car and not have it run?

I’ve googled for more info on this car a few times and I have only ever been able to find these two pictures. The Evolution Racing site on the windshield went down some time ago and the only current web presence I can see is located on mycitytoronto.com . As such I can’t really provide much more info on this car (I don’t really feel like calling and asking them about it).

One thing I did do however is google the known address of Evolution Racing and noticed that the current location may or may not currently have a dyno setup. Does this mean that maybe this car is sitting under a tarp in the back of the shop waiting to make an appearance once again? One can only hope…

Might look a bit dated now but this car was a show stopper

I can only assume the cotton was there to cover up some unfinished cosmetic touches

If you have any info on this car or ever saw it run let me know in the comments, I’m dying to know more about it.

Yesterday I went to cover a local e30 meet and as usual Jay (Mystkial) and I chatted about e30s that have come and gone from the GTA scene over the years. While there has been an astonishing number of e30s that just up and disappeared the most famous of all the disappearing acts would have to be Randys Super charged S52, Reiger Kitted, Honda Blue, 325. This car set had a huge impact on the e30 scene at the  time so lets go back and take a look at why.

I first saw this car at Importfest the weekend after my e30 crossed the border and it was immediately put on my short list of cars I wanted mine to look like. It wasn’t until I joined maxbimmer (where Randy is a member and a moderator) that I really got to know how much of a beast this car actually was.

Very few people set e30s up like this these days but in the late 90s and early 2000s this was how it was done

This car started out as an 1988 325e (one of the slowest e30s but ironically the fastest year 325e) but by the end it was far from a stock 325e. The standard superEta motor was tossed in favor of an s52 mill which is, for those of you who are not BMW heads, the motor out of a 1999 m3 and stock puts out about 250hp. However Randy’s Motor wasn’t stock and in addition to the blower it was bored out, had a higher flowing intake plenum, a set of Genie headers which fronted a 2.5″ mandrel bent exhaust system. It’s hard to find the numbers that the motor put out when it was in it’s prime but it’s safe to say that it had the power to back up the aggressive look.

Blow s52

The aggressive look of the car came via authentic Reiger GTS front and rear bumpers, MTECH side panels, and Honda Civic rocker covers which were fixed to the body and painted Honda Electron Blue pearl. To set off the kit and color the car was fit with large and wide (for the time) white 18″ X 8″ Compomotive wheels, the wheels were then matched with the necessary low stance via e36 OBX coil over sleeves.

In 2001 flush wasn't as popular as tuck

Randy was one of the first people to run these coil over sleeves on an e30 and this opened the flood gates for an inexpensive way to slam the heck out of e30s, The authentic Hella H.I.D.s in the US elipsoid headlights were also one of the first for it’s time. H.I.D. kits in those days were not as cheap and readily available as they are now.

The interior was swapped to black cloth, with a white six point roll cage added and OBX reclining racing buckets up front, the car also had the necessary (for showing) full I.C.E setup and the necessary (for not going to jail) hidden Valentine 01 radar detection system.

Further plans for the car included a nitrous oxide system and a few more under-hood bolt ons, that is until the unthinkable happened. One night while parked in the streets of Montreal the car was stolen and never to be seen again.

Rumors soon began to fly through the now large online e30 community that the car was stolen for an insurance scam, or that Randy crashed it on some back road some where but regardless of if either of those are really true the fact remains that this car is gone and now only lives via pictures and videos.

While this car might not be the style today and looking at it now some could call it ugly it was a trend setter in it’s time and deserves to be remembered.

*Images courtesy of dtmpower who still has their article regarding his e30 up here. Anyone remember Mischeif?