I bought my E12 M535i in February 1996, It had been involved in a light front end crash and had already been off the road for a couple of years. There was damage to the front panel, inner wing and bonnet, I thought the price was reasonable at the time and felt that within a few months I could have it back on the road and be enjoying real BMW power. However things are not always that straight forward, with other commitments and a house move, the "M" is currently on holiday in a friends garage.

I have already carried out a lot of work to this car, including new rear panel, new inner wing, new front panel, new spare wheel well, fitted a good secondhand bonnet and lots of other smaller jobs. The one thing that always keeps me going is that no matter how long it has been standing, it always starts almost first time.
The interior was almost unmarked when I bought the car, it had had the drivers side seat squab repaired but a good job had been made, unfortunately while it was up at my fathers, some mice decided to live in it and they took large junks out of both front seats, I was furious , but what can you do, I have another front seat and have also managed to source a small amount of the material from another rear seat that I hope will be enough to repair, I am also on the look out for a leather interior, budget permitting.

I was recently lucky enough to buy a load of New Old Stock genuine BMW panels for the car, they include 2 brand new rear wings, inner wheel arch tubs, and a brand new passenger side inner wing, there was also some good doors and boot lid, these should allow me to make a really nice job of the restoration, as the inner wing and bulkhead in particular needs some major work to put it right, I can only assume that sometime in the past it had received some damage to that side also as the rot is far more severe that the drivers side. Amongst the new panels was also a complete rear panel, complete front panel and complete 2 section boot floor, I don't need these at present, but who knows, one day I may need them for another project.