Such is the path that leads straight to 24 Hours Of LeMons Hell, and Mad_Science decided to skip the commonplace Supras and Mustangs and dive right into the world of BMW E24 race car ownership.

What's the weak link on a LeMons BMW? Aside from the electrical system, that is? That's right, the driveshaft guibo! BMW used these rubber-und-steel insulators between the transmission and driveshaft, in order to add needless complexity and provide a good living for BMW mechanics dampen excessive drivetrain harshness, and old ones tend to disintegrate after a few hours of race track punishment. Such was the case with the Team Unknown Fluids (get it? 633CSI?) BMW, and they accidentally left their spare guibos in Los Angeles, 100 miles to the south. Fortunately, another team had an extra guibo, and all was soon well.

That is, all was well until an axle shaft came into contact with the pressurized fuel line, causing a rapidly escalating fuel leak and another stint up on jackstands. It's all fixed now, however, and we look forward to seeing Team Unknown Fluids take to the track tomorrow and start moving up the ranks from its current 71st-place spot.

Yes, the Autobahn Society Racing crew has made a 2002 into a painstaking replica of the Frank Stella 1976 3.0 CSL art car. This car is a veteran of the LeMons SF '08 race, where it finished 24th. This time it finished 80th.


The Altamont-vet "tank 5 Series" got zapped with a 150-lap BS Penalty right off the bat, which didn't sit too well with the team. Their best lap of 1:36.896 was quite impressive, though eventually they got put on the trailer for running 60-treadwear racing slicks, and parking-lot drift hilarity ensued.


You can usually spot a veteran of the legendary "Demolition Derby LeMons" race, aka the Gimme Shelter LeMons SF Fall '07 event, just by looking at the body panels, but the Mach Schnell car seems to have been beaten back into a semblance of factory appearance. This time the Schnells came in 25th, with a blistering 1:33.594 best lap.


Another battered Gimme Shelter Altamont vet, the Foolz came in 31st this time.


With nine penalties at the Yeehaw It's Texas '08 event the Sharks got 30th place this time. They drove like madmen fleeing a bank robbery and were on the receiving end of a textbook PIT Maneuver at the hands of a crafty RX-7. They also feature prominently in the Pandamonium Jackass Highlights Video, but the Sharks really do understand the spirit of LeMons and we hope to see them in future races.


Plucked from a swamp in the damp Pacific Northwest, this car had lichens growing all over its bodywork (and the most perfectly preserved 2002 dash in the entire world, which is no doubt headed for a lucrative sale on eBay). Thanks in part to a 35-lap bonus (but mostly due to their black-flag-free driving), the Hurling Mossers stunned the LeMons community with a 7th-place finish. OK, they'd have been 34th without the bonus, but everyone was still quite impressed.


Why don't we see more E24s at LeMons? You can get them cheap, junkyard 5 series cars provide plenty of parts, and they're quite fast; check out the 1:35.405 best lap on this car!





Another fast BMW (1:37.924 best lap), held back by reliability issues (and a 15-lap BS Penalty). 59th place.


This LeMons veteran ran a best lap of 1:36.083, but… 52nd place. Damn electronics!


The Porcubimmer was back, and the "angry porcupine" look was a real crowd-pleaser out there on the track. This time, the car held together pretty well, and the team notched a 32nd-place finish- no easy task in this race. Best lap time: 1:37.461. You can get the full story at the team site.


We liked the decoration on this car, which was yet another sub-1:38 hot-rod BMW with reliability problems. 78th place. Check out their excellent highlight video:





These guys have the #1 24 Hours Of LeMons video on YouTube, but the Porsche 944 just wasn't ready for Thunderhill and they showed up in a substitute E30 instead. Electrical malfunctions, blah blah blah, the usual E30 refrain. 81st place.


Here's an obvious Demolition Derby LeMons vet, not to mention all the California LeMons races since then. This E30 stayed clear of electrical demons and came in 10th place; you'll enjoy the team's mini-documentary.


We love literary and/or mythological references in team names, and the wing on the 55th-place Faustest E30 did look good.


Great team name, though we can't imagine many high-school kids wanted the 325e more than the 325iS. Look at that 1:34.669 best lap! Damn, those E30s are quick… but what's with the 65th-place finish?


Gimme Shelter '07 vet here, as you can tell by the much-bent-and-restraightened bodywork. The Bears did quite well at Thunderhill, coming in 28th and running a best lap of 1:37.341.

This car is owned by the man I consider to be the King Of Alameda BMWs; not only does he have a '74 E9 on the street, he's got a turbocharged 745i and who knows what other droolworthy Bavarian steel in the garage and scattered around the neighborhood. We'll be seeing the rest of his cars soon enough, but today it's the E24's turn. He picked up this '82 633CSi cheap when its previous owner despaired of ever getting his PCH running. It needs some work, but the body is straight and it now runs just fine.


It's tough to find an example of car-quality-per-dollar quite as good as you get with these things nowadays; the going rate on a nice E24 is down in 100,000-mile Civic territory, and this is a car that sold for the 2008 equivalent of 84 grand when new! The junkyards are chock-full of parts, too. BMWs don't usually get me too worked up, but I've got to admit that I'm seriously tempted to get an E24.

This car is registered as a 1983 model, according to the California Smog Check Database, but the trunklid badge identifies it as a 633CS… which wasn't built that year. In fact, as far as I can tell there was never any such model as the 633SC. Junkyard trunk lid and/or emblem swap? E24 experts, what do you think?


Whatever it is, this car has a five-speed, looks pretty good, and drives every day.

First up is this BMW 633CSi, found in northwestern Denver by Ejacobs. This car looks about as nice as it's possible for a 25-year-old driver to be, particularly in a town with snowy winters and harsh sun.


Now it's Kitt's turn. This 2002 was shot last winter- yeah, it sometimes takes me forever to get to these photos- in the parking lot at the Arapahoe Basin ski area. Yes, Colorado BMW owners know you don't need a damn Explorer or Forester just to go skiing! This car's a little rough, but it still gets the job done after all these decades.


Here's a Malaise 2002 I found near the University of Denver; the square taillights and 5 MPH bumpers mean it's a '74-76 model, and it appears that Denver-registered vehicles newer than 1959 require biannual smog checks, so the owner of this rough-but-serviceable 2002 can't do much about the lo-po engine and remain legal. Can't they get rid of wood-burning stoves instead?

Yes, it's what appears to be a genuine first-generation BMW M6 (or a really, really good fake). I was out for a walk and spotted this red shark parked in a handicapped zone next to Alameda Hospital. You see, handicapped drivers here in the Bay Area don't allow their disabilities to dilute their love for fast German cars.


Fewer than 2,000 E24 M6s were sold in North America during the 1983-89 period. The '87 came with a 256-horse six and a price tag of $55,950 ($106,695.07 in 2008 bucks), just a few grand less than a new Porsche 928S.


This example is in very nice condition for a street-driven 21-year-old car. Sure, 256 horsepower in a 3,570-pound car isn't such a big deal nowadays, but this thing was a fearsome factory hot rod in its time.

Now, I wouldn't consider myself too biased towards Bavarians of this vintage, but I have owned a few of 'em. I've had this one since autumn, and it's actually my first 6-series. Without a doubt the E24 633CSi is stylish, but it's certainly not as involving to drive as an E30 325is, as easy to powerslide as an E28 535is, as rare as an E23 732i, or as economical as an E30 325e. But you do get the feeling that you're in something slightly more special than a standard Bimmer. So a good buy then? Well I paid $2500 for this one. It's got a couple little issues, like non-functioning gauge lights, brakes that feel absolutely wooden, and wipers that always get tangled up on each other, but it's also fairly rust-free for a Michigan car, and is a somewhat rare 5-speed manual. But to be honest, I had no intention of buying it when I went to go look at it. The problem was... I looked at it, and kept looking... staring at it as the setting sun turned the ambient light around it into a spectrum of red and orange gently bouncing off that glorious grey paint. Call me a sucker, but it was just too damn pretty.

Back in 1967, many of those hankering for a German performance car usually went for the Porsche 911 (priced at about $5,900) or maybe the Mercedes-Benz 250SL ($6,500). But what about the BMW 2000C, which could be purchased for a mere $5,000 and offered handling and style galore? Not many chose the BMW, which means they're quite difficult to find these days. Think you need to settle for a ho-hum 2002 for your vintage BMW project, with its easy-to-find parts and vast network of enthusiasts making your character-building Hell Project more of a laziness-inducing Mildly Challenging Project? Nein! We've managed to find this 1967 2000C (go here if the ad disappears) for you, and the price is a very reasonable $1,500! There's a big problem you'll need to solve right off the bat with this one- it's an automatic transmission-equipped car- but it "runs good." And that's all the seller sees fit to share with the world. There might be rust. There might be missing parts. The interior could be home to a boiling hive of Botswanan Urethra-Seeking Fire Millipedes. Who can say? Just imagine yourself behind the wheel of this baby after you've ditched the slushbox for a 5-speed and squeezed every last rampagin' Bavarian pony out of the engine!

Those old BMWs are cool, but they just weren't expensive enough when new. With great expense comes great complexity, and you got both in spades with the BMW E24 6-series cars. Malaise be damned, even the 70s 6-series cars were big and fast, and they looked mean. Some folks are scared off by them today, what with their rep for expensive repairs and hard-to-find parts, but we know you're willing to march right into the flames and claim your new car: this '84 BMW 633CSi (go here if the ad disappears). We hardly dare mention the price, since it must be a typo. Really, a car that sold new for the equivalent of 84 grand in 2008 dollars can't possibly be selling now for just... $800! And look at it- not in bad shape at all (well, at least the parts that you can see in the photos). Unlike the 2000C, this one comes with a manual transmission, but it's sort of on the broken side. The seller also claims it needs a fuel pump ("needs fuel pump" is often Car Seller-ese for "something maybe involving the fuel system isn't working right"). There's a certain lack of clarity surrounding its running-versus-nonrunning status, with the seller mixing past and present tense in the not-so-enlightening statement: "Yes it runs,and ran perfect." So, bad transmission, fuel system woes, "very little" rust, runs or maybe ran... there's so much to like about this car, and what a price! You should be able to get it back to showroom condition in, what, a couple of weeks? Sure!

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This was a seriously expensive car back in '83, listing at $39,120 (about 83 grand in 2008 dollars). That was pretty much three times the cost of a new 320i, and for another $4,000 over the cost of the 633CSi you could have had a Porsche 928S.


Say it's 1983 and you're a low-ranking S&L employee who's managed to grab $43K in scraps from your bosses' wholesale looting. You deserve some German machinery, but what to buy? Do you take the three 320is, the 928, or the 633CSi? A few minutes at Sharknose.de tends to make me favor the 6-series.


Nowadays, of course, you can buy a running example one of these cars for peanuts... but keeping one running is considerably more costly. 633CSis are pretty commonplace in the wrecking yards as a result.