I grew up being ferried around in various E30 3-Series BMWs as my parents owned just about every model in the range between 1984 and 1990. A rare treat once I passed my driving test was being allowed out in the 318i they had at the time, so the E30 has always been my favourite series of BMW, and the legendary E30 M3 firmly on the list of "Cars I must one day own."

In November 2004 I was driving past a small motor-trader near where I live and out of the corner of my eye I spied a red E30 M3. A week later, after a look around it and a test drive, it was mine. I paid £6,995 with £2,000 being offered on the E34 535i Sport I traded in.

The process of getting the V5 off the garage, getting it re-taxed and the cherished plate transferred off is however a barely believable 4 month story involving a high speed chase, a narrowly avoided assault, the Police, theft of a tax disc and a suspect piece of DVLA paperwork - worthy of an entire journal entry on its own!

I was expecting something of an insurance nightmare with this car, what with it being left hand drive, of limited number and out of production for some 12 years, but I was pleasantly surprised by the £360 premium charged by Liverpool Victoria. At least that part of the buying process was painless!

My M3 is one of the original non-EVO models, originally equipped with a catalytic converter and finished in Zinnoberrot red over a black leather interior. It had covered just over 148,000 km when I bought it.

The original 15" wheels had been replaced with 16" split-rim BBS RS cross-spokes with the rears a whopping 9" wide, and the original suspension replaced with a stiffer and lower set. I've been unable to determine the make of the dampers but the springs are from Eibach and judging by the fantastic handling, it's decent kit. It also had a polished chrome Eibach strut brace fitted.

From the comprehensive history file I knew that it was originally sold in Germany, and imported into the UK in August of 2000. It was then owned, apparently by an enthusiast judging by the number of service bills and receipts, and then passed into the hands of the aforementioned dodgy owner; well, let's just say he was more of a style over function kind of guy…

The 'upgrades' that had been applied by this chap were;

• A cat-free exhaust centre section and back-box from Scorpion; I think the criteria used for selecting this particular 'upgrade' was the amount of blood pouring from his ears and the amount of power it could deprive the engine of. Nasty.
• Foliatec aluminium-effect pedal covers. Ugh.
• Replacement white instrument dial faces with MPH markings for the speedo. My eyes!
• A 'Green' cone air filter with a bit of what looked like vacuum cleaner hose bodged into place, induction-kit stylee. Oh dear.
• Tyres made from the finest hardwood. The rears oversized in width and profile such that they rubbed on the arches under enthusiastic cornering!

When I got it home the very first thing I did was rip off the horrible pedal covers and chuck them in the bin.

The next atrocity to go was the white instrument dial faces. As if they didn't look bad enough he had put the speedo needle back on in the wrong place so it constantly over-read by 20 mph! I can't even begin to describe how awful they looked at night under illumination.

Thankfully the KPH marked original black ones were among the documentation, but it was still somewhat of a faff to remove the dashboard unit and carefully replace them.

In a cardboard box in the boot amongst a pile of general crap was the original air filter assembly, so I ditched the cone filter and put that back on as well.

I had to endure that dreadful exhaust for almost a month before I could source a properly designed SuperSprint exhaust centre section and back box to replace it. I would have preferred to fit a genuine BMW system, but they are ferociously expensive at well over £1,200. Some research on the 'net revealed the SuperSprint system to be the next best thing at less than half that cost, and crucially, featured the x-pipe centre section design.

Prior to replacing the exhaust system I took the car to Dave Walker at Emerald, a renowned local tuning outfit, for a Lotus 7 Owners Club dyno day. It confirmed what I suspected; the dyno plot showed 181 bhp and a torque figure of 143 lb·ft - well down on the 195 & 170 it left the factory with.

It seemed that as well as having dubious taste, the previous owner had also neglected some basic maintenance in the thankfully short time he had owned it.

I bought a new set of auxiliary belts, an oil filter, a set of spark plugs, a distributor cap & rotor arm from BMW, and a set of Magnecor HT leads and a quantity of Millers 5w-40 fully synthetic oil.

One sunny Saturday and my own labour later, the oil was changed and the various parts, including the much more agreeable sounding SuperSprint exhaust system, were fitted.

A few days later I booked the car into Lind BMW to have the valve clearances checked and adjusted, and caused quite a stir in the workshop in the process; being a main dealer, Lind hadn't seen one of these for quite some while and the guy that was to perform the work came out for a chat about the car when I dropped it off.

Enthusiasts often scoff about the abilities (and expense) of main dealers, especially on older or out of the ordinary cars, but I got a real impression that they were as enthusiastic to see and work on this car in their workshops as I was to own it. With the valve clearances adjusted, I set about re-balancing the throttle bodies using my new vacuum gauges.

The remedial work really transformed the car, so it was off for another dyno run to see what the numbers said. This time it produced a healthy 203 bhp and a torque figure of 169 lb·ft - I was very happy with that.

The final part of the transformation back from Muppet-mobile came when the Ditchmeister DieYoung tyres were binned in favour of a set of Goodyear Eagle F1s in the correct 225/45 16 size. This meant the rears were stretched slightly over the wider 10.5" rim, but they no longer rubbed on the arches and the amount of grip available was massively increased, particularly in the wet.

At this point the car had a few minor faults left. The air conditioning wasn't working (allegedly needing a new piece of rubber pipe and a re-gas), the front fog lights were inexplicably not wired up, and the external temperature sensor was missing, causing the computer to constantly report a chilly -30 degrees.

You may wonder, having read all this, why I bought a car with so many obvious problems. Well, underneath it all it looked like (and has turned out to be) a sound car in good order. It was just suffering from the effects of being owned by someone with no real appreciation of what they had or how to look after an old car properly. Added to that is the fact that I'm an impulsive kind of guy and I've never seen before or since another E30 M3 for sale locally.

Anyway, despite having spent a good £1,200 (less a couple of hundred quid I got for selling the Scorpion exhaust system) on top of the purchase price just making it right again, I still felt like it was a good buy.

Just looking at it never fails to make me smile - with its boxy wheel arches and aggressive looking stance it looks every bit the racing thoroughbred it actually is.

Next time I'll be telling you what it's like to actually drive this motoring legend…

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