Joined Club E91
I sold my dream car, a 996 C4S, in early May after the dream faded and I accepted I don’t have the kind of $$$ to keep an M96 car on the road long term. Not as a daily, anyhow. I DIY everything, but Porsche parts cost stupid money. And I play in bands. Hauling gear in a 911 sucked. For the year leading up to the sale, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the ideal replacement for the Porsche. Something fun to drive that suited my lifestyle better, was cheaper to maintain, and was a little newer, but still had hydraulic steering. RWD and three pedals: non-negotiable. I finally landed on the E91. It may be the perfect do it all, fun daily driver.
This car is a 2012 E91 RWD 6MT in Deep Sea Blue Metallic over Chestnut Brown Dakota leather. My ideal color combo—and according to bimmerstats, a 1 of 1 car in this combo in the US. Sport package. Sport seats. Single hump. *chef’s kiss*
It took two months of obsessive searching to find this car. I bought it from the second owner with 156,xxx on the clock. The PO DM’d me on Facebook messenger after I posted a wanted ad for a blue, red, or black RWD 6MT car on an E91 enthusiast facebook group. The car was never publicly listed for sale. No records to speak of before the PO’s tenure with the car began last year. But his PPI and mine confirmed that the car had been well taken care of and needed nothing. No oil leaks anywhere. Once he got the car from Texas to his home in South Florida, he put on G-series brakes, 640M wheels with 12mm spacers, 3SIM and tune, airbox charcoal filter delete, silicone air intake hose, whiteline rear subframe bushings, swapped in a 3.73 diff from an automatic, and had some interior leather issues fixed. He was ironically selling to potentially fund a Porsche Cayman after a recent Boxster rescue gave him the bug.
After lots of text conversations, a few phone calls, and a very encouraging PPI, I wired the owner the money and booked a one-way flight to West Palm Beach. While waiting for that day to arrive, I spent hours obsessively routing a road trip from South Florida to Savannah, GA, over to the Blue Ridge and all those magnificent roads, and up to my Eastern Iowa home, nestled among the wooded ravines of the upper Mississippi River Valley. I only had three days for this 1,500-mile journey, and I packed in as much cool shit as possible. The car performed flawlessly outside of an unexpected replacement of all four Firestone Indy 500s when I found a growing bulge on the inside sidewall of the passenger rear south of Lexington, Kentucky. A morning of phone calls finally sourced some suitable replacements in the correct size. The Michelin Pilot Sport AS4s are a compromise, but they were the best option in stock anywhere near Lexington, and I couldn’t afford to lose another day of work to wait for some better rubber. Now that they’re breaking in they’re starting to be more responsive and less squishy. And as a daily, the AS4s work great for 99 percent of my use case.
I love this car. But coming from a 996 and an E30 before that, it needs some sharpening up to improve tactile feel for it to truly be mine. The plan: M3 control arms fore and aft, Koni Sports and Eibachs, limited slip, delrin shifter bushings, Turner intake for the sound, and a Rogue Ikon muffler. Oh, and eventually M Sport bumpers as the originals need some paintwork anyhow. This’ll be a piece at a time project over the next year or two. In the meantime, I’m having a great time driving this thing every day.