BMW M3: an E30 dream becomes reality

18 November, 2015

Most of us can remember when we first became passionate about cars — and certain makes at that. For me, I remember getting a ride as a 10-year-old in a Subaru WRX rally car. I’ll never forget being strapped into that bucket seat, and getting airborne over a local speed bump just near my house, narrowly missing a wandering dog upon landing. Another vivid memory around the same time was a ride in an ’80s Honda Prelude Si, with a DOHC 16-valve two-litre. I will never forget the howl that the factory two-litre motor produced near redline — cementing my passion for the H badge for years to come.

For Gabor Mester, he fell in love with cars whilst at a family friend’s place where he stumbled into a BMW M3 E30 in their garage. Throughout his teens he would go over and offer to wash and clean the vehicle for the owners, just to be around its bulbous ’80s curves. Fast forward a few years, Gabor now owns that particular vehicle — and after seven years of ownership, the passion continues to grow.

A second dose of Dash

When the car arrived in Wellington in December 2018 it was duly taken along for entry certification. Vehicle Inspection NZ (VINZ) found some wrongly wired lamps and switches — not too bad — but, much more significantly, some poor welding repairs. As the structural problems were probed more thoroughly, we realized the previous owner’s restoration would not do and we needed an upgrade. Dash had made it into the country but it would take some time and money before he would be free to explore any of New Zealand’s scenic highways.
We took the car to our new home in Johnsonville in the northern suburbs of Wellington and I pored over the car in detail to figure out what was next. There were lots of new parts on the car and a very perky reconditioned drivetrain but the chassis needed serious work.

Lunch with… Jim Palmer

In the 1960s, Hamilton’s Jim Palmer won the prestigious ‘Gold Star’ four times and was the first resident New Zealander home in the New Zealand Grand Prix on five consecutive occasions. He shared the podium with Stirling Moss, Jack Brabham, Bruce McLaren, Graham Hill, Jim Clark, Denny Hulme, Jackie Stewart, and Chris Amon. The extent of his domination of the open-wheeler scene in New Zealand will probably never be matched or exceeded. Yet he’s always been modest about his achievements.