MadaboutKitcars

Been watching this scabby Z3 on ebay. Item 173896460848

Lots of interest and loads of bids. Needs a fair bit of work to get through an MOT. The suspension is shot , the exhaust is blowing etc etc.
Bidding upto £1800 with another day to run !!

Checking the MOT history reveals a pretty poor history of fails every year and loads of advisories.

Why would you want it when there are plenty of good ones for around £2500 !

Probably got his mates bidding it up for him.

No doubt it will be all the interested folk afterStoneleogh, aiming to get a donor before ordering a kit.

I hope not ! It went for under £1900 in the end but it wasn't a good buy at that sort of money.

Better to buy a good donor car that is sound that has been looked after. When you can sell on so many parts you don't need, a really tidy £3k donor can end up costing less than £2k.

There are plenty of good examples out there for around £2 -3k. The base car is important with a rebody kit, why skimp on a really rough Z3 donor when you will be spending £8 - 12k to complete a build?

I agree with your reasoning, that is what I am doing. But there are a few who have bought cheap ones and done the fixes themselves.

I think I have been quite lucky. I bought a scabby 2.8 for £1200.
But all the scab is in the paintwork. The engine is sweet and chassis looks great. I don’t think I will get much on eBay for the body parts ��

got lucky on my 1998 2.8 Z3.
4300 GBP always garage kept, only 48,000 miles and all
BMW service receipts. Paint was pristine as well. Looked kike it just left the showroom.

I always check the MOT history of a car before buying. You might be offered a car with a new MOT but dig a little deeper and you might find a list of advisories as long as your arm that will need doing next time.
Go back a year or two and see if it has been failing at every MOT before the essentials were fixed. It gives a good idea of the general condition you can expect when buying.
The car mentioned at the start of this thread had a string of fails and many advisories that will need sorting in the not too distant future. For another £500 - 600 you could buy a good one with a sound history saving a load of time and money on fixes.

Again, top advise, also, the buyer guide that Richard Nird wrote (available on the Classic Coachworks site). The MOT often gives info. regarding previous fails, followed by passes for such things as dodgy and corroded suspension etc. Everything is a trade off, so it is a question of being patient and making an informed choice. I paid £4K for a 50k 3 let, which was a very good price, but the £850 to get the yaw sensor replaced brought it back to close to market. It has good panels, working and decent electric roof, roll bars and a good tonneau, so like you say, probably above average recovery to reduce the net donor cost. Swings and roundabouts everywhere. Mine will be the base for an everyday drive car, so everything has to be spot on mechanically.

Mine was also flawed on body area- bizarrely used as bargaining point knowing it was all coming off anyway!

Be patient, good cheap cars do come up. Recently picked one up for £950. 2.8, 88k,mot, uptated lowered suspension, recent tyres perect leather interior. Bad points, owner had tried to seal the rear window with black silicone and a chunk out of the front bumper.
Will more than cover its cost when stripped especially as it has perfect moving door mirrors.
Have managed to sell complete outer body panel sets to members of the z forum for around a grand a pop including fitting, nice to see a tatty z drive in and drive out at the end of the day transformed. This normally almost covers the cost of the car plus a days labour.

This could all be academic soon.
The latest pic of the garage at Moreton (in the XK120-alike ad on eBay) shows a Z4 in the process of being stripped down...

Well spotted

...and an Audi TT.