A couple of years ago, you could get a mintly preserved E31 BMW 8 Series for a little over $6,500 in Europe. Today, this legendary Bavarian coupe goes for anything between $20,000 to $45,000 in the U.S. Like fine wine, more and more car enthusiasts are beginning to appreciate its timeless appeal. Hoonigan featured a unique version of the 8ser – with a BMW M5 engine swap.
BMW unveiled the E31 8 Series Bimmer at the 1989 Frankfurt International Auto Show. Unbeknownst to the Bavarian automaker, this sports coupe would go down in history as an icon – a rare sports coupe of the '90s.
Hoonigan’s featured 8 Series is unlike anything that drove into the 89 Frankfurt Auto Show. It comes with a mix of everything good from BMW and belongs to Mike from QBM Auto Parts in Sacramento, California.
It has an E36 interior(steering wheel) and M3 seats. Under the hood, it’s powered by a supercharged E39 M5 engine with Plenum headers and a custom ECU. He also installed an E55 AMG brake kit on this sports coupe. According to Mike, his 8 Series BMW should be putting out about 600 hp (608 ps) with the mods.
Even though Mike owns a junkyard, he insists he got this BMW 8 Series in perfect condition.
“It was an 840 V8 perfect car. I just always wanted an 8 Series, and then I didn’t even know I was going to do the swap. Once we got the M5 in, I didn’t know what to do with the motor. I just wanted to make it fit,” he confessed.
It was also his first time doing a swap, and luckily, it fit right in. Everything bolted right in, including the manual transmission.
The BMW 8 Series sounds fantastic. It’s throaty enough to make you want to ‘full-send’ it down a lonely road. We recommend watching it shred some tires at the Hoonigan Burnyard.
Humphrey is a car enthusiast whose love and passion for automobiles extended into collecting, writing, driving, and working on cars. He got his passion for cars from his Dad, who spent thousands of hours working on his old junky 1970 E20 Toyota Corolla. Years later, he would end up doing the same with a series of lemons he’s owned throughout his adult life. Full profile
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