My 10 Favorite Cars #5- BMW M3 E30

Just look at it.   All  blistered fenders and wings, sculpted side skirts and menacing black grilles.   The regular E30 3-series is easily the best of the series, and this is without a doubt the very best of the M-division's offerings to date.   Yes, it "only" has a four-cylinder engine with 192hp, but in a car that weighed under 3000 pounds with rear wheel drive and a very stiff and willing chassis, this puppy was a race-car for the streets.

BMW set about stiffening the body shell and applying all of it's handling prowess into an absolute scalpel of a car.  They also improved the brakes, and those wider wheel arches accommodate wider  tires.   While later variations of the M3 were more powerful and faster in a straight line, this is the most direct and precise of the line.  And this one still looks cool, like a road-bound rally car.

One of my favorite qualities of this car is it's relative affordability.  Yes, they are fairly rare (only about 5000 were brought to the US from 1986-1992), somewhat exotic looking, and have genuine racing heritage.  But because they look similar to a standard 3-series, are slow by modern quick car standards (0-60 in just under 7 seconds), they have not caught the eye of the Corvette/Ferrari/Muscle Car crowd of collectors.  Yet.  The biggest problem is finding one that hasn't been wrecked, abused, or modified, as the price dipped into the high-school kid range for a brief period.

Still, it seems like it would be worth the wait and the small outlay to own a truly legendary car, and I can't wait until I have a bigger garage to put one in.