For $5,500, I Am Number Five

Patience is a virtue, and for the seller of today's Nice Price or Crack Pipe BMW 535iM, who has been trying to unload his car for two years, his tenacity rivals that of the biblical Job. But, do good things come to those who wait?

Yesterday there was no waiting on checkstand RX7 and fully 71% of you went for the Nice Price special – double coupons accepted, void where prohibited. That bodes well for the seller moving that Mazda in a timely manner, something that can't be said for today's 1992 BMW 535i, which was put up for grabs on the BimmerForums all the way back in November of 2009. Now sure, some cars are impossible to unload – those carrying deposed foreign dictators say – or NAMBLA staff cars, noted as such in indelible signage on their sides. But this is a BMW, and everybody likes BMWs, right? It sports that company's sweet 208-bhp M30 six, arguably one of the best motors ever built. And, it's a relatively rare – the seller claims it's one of only 4,838 E34 cars to make it past U.S. Customs while carrying a stick and clutching a pedal.

Maybe the reason it hasn't traded hands is due to condition. But if the pictures are to be believed, or the seller's litany of repairs and upgrades, then it seems that perhaps it's not a severed monkey paw seeking a new owner to initially delight but then, in an ironic turn of events, destroy the life of. So maybe it's the asking price, and after all, isn't that why we're here today? Well, that and the hotwings? Back during the last decade, the asking price was $7,000, but since then everything from the prices of home prices to those of lap dances have been in decline, and seeing that even potential buyers for the Ultimate Driving Machine have been affected, he's since lowered it to $5,500.

That gets you a pretty nice looking car with, as noted, a bunch of modest modifications – it has a Schnitzer front bumper which looks more butch than stock, and the front and rear lights are all Hella good. Outside he's fitted some decent M5 styling cues including the throwing star rims, although the black-out grille is all him, and of questionable taste. Under the hood, he says he's made the A/C safe for hippies, and has replaced almost everything in there with 'pump' in its name. That's all happened in 140,000 miles under the bridge, and he claims it to be good for another 160K.

If you follow the forum thread on this car you'll see that there was an even earlier attempt to sell it, at a price seen as egregiously high, even to another BMW owner. That comment leads to a discussion of the merits of the 535iM in this price strata, and in relation to the later 540i/6, or its contemporary 525. Goldilocks was high maintenance, and in a comparison of which that home invader would approve, they come down to the 525 being too little, and the 540 potentially being too much (maintenance-wise), making the 535i. . . just right?

Whether right or not, this 535i has been for sale all the way through this guy's grad school and on into his career (hopefully not as a used car salesman), with no end in sight. There was a lull in the forum posts for a while there last year, but things have heated up now that this Century goes all the way up to 11, and perhaps a positive outcome here will spur things along? So, with that in mind, let's clean off the cobwebs and take a look at this toothsome car's long in the tooth ad. What do you say to $5,500 for this 535i? Is that a price at which you think it'll finally find a new home? Or, like a Roach Motel, has it checked in, and won't check out?

You decide!

Bimmerforums or go here if the ad disappears – yeah, right.

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