So this is it. I'm very excited. This is the newest addition to the fleet. It's a 2001 BMW E46 325ci Convertible. I had a really good friend I've had for 30 years now, who lost his older brother. And this was his older brother's car. And it's a manual shift vehicle, and it's got a lot of miles on it. I'm going to walk around and have everyone see this car and then the maybe describe the miles to you after that. But it's got a lot of miles, it doesn't have a lot of market value as a result, and he really didn't know what to do with it. He doesn't even drive a manual so he really was just trying to figure out what to do with it.

His older brother though was quite the car person. And he called him OCD in terms of how well he took care of the car. And when you hear how many miles this car has on it versus what it looks like, and drives like, you're going to probably agree, I agree, that he was -- his older brother was OCD. But he was a great guy, and his name was Sammy, and he was a great guy. If you want to try to picture Sammy, fittingly his name is Sammy and if you think of Sammy Hagar, he grew up in the '80s like a lot of us did, and he kinda looked like Sammy, and he was a big rock and roll guy. He had a lot of musical interests. This. was his car, he was also an automotive enthusiast, and he wanted a car that was fun to drive. And he didn't have to get a Porsche or a an exotic car. This got it done for him. Although his other car was a 1994 Lotus Esprit, so he actually did have another, more exotic car.

Anyways, I inherited this vehicle and it's really interesting because to me this is when BMW was at it's height. This is when the BMW brand was the best it ever got. I know I sound like an old guy saying that. Just like every old guy, these car could go uphill in bare feet, in snow, both ways to school, and drive well. But this is was a great car. And I remember it very fondly because I was working at Edmunds.com at the time and we had a long-term 325 sedan with the exact same drivetrain, including the woodgrain shifter that this thing has. So when I drive this car there's all these weird memory stirrings I have every time I shift it, and hear it, and feel that straight six that's so smooth. To have a convertible version of that car, twenty-plus years later, that's in this kind of shape, and have it kind of fall in my lap, is very exciting for me.

Experienced a lot of things already in just the, really, two months that I've had it. I got it the Saturday after Thanksgiving of 2021. And, again, that broad, smooth torque band from that 2.5-liter engine is fabulous. The shifter action is very good. The car is so analogue, which you can't get in modern cars. Just to have hydraulic-assisted steering. I love how well they've EPS work in today's world, but it's still doesn't work as well as a full mechanical, hydraulic-assisted system like this one has, and cars of this era had. So I drive this vehicle and I just feel like, "Oh yeah, this is what cars used to be like." And some would argue this is the height in terms of, as many modern conveniences as you can get without too much antiseptic technology that starts to dumb it down. Too much simulator-like feeling that you have in cars, like say a Tesla, where there's nothing analogue about the car. It's completely a digital experience. It's like having a video game.

So anyways, this car's been fabulous and I'm going to start doing some upgrades to it. I've already picked up an M-Sport steering wheel for it. One of the few areas that shows any signs of wear are the cupholders and the center armrest storage pocket that are kind of deteriorating. But I've already gotten new ones of those and I'm going to have those installed in another video. And the oil level sensor light is lying to me. Every time I start it the yellow light comes on with the little oil can saying I'm low on oil. And after about the 5th time it did that and I was fine I went online and, sure enough, the oil level sensor unit goes out a lot. So I've already got the parts ordered off Amazon and I'm going to replace that.

And something else else that's really fabulous about these cars besides the way they look the styling has aged really well, and besides the way they drive, and they drive fabulously, is that there's a huge fan base for all these reasons I've already discussed. And so it's easy to find anything that you need to find out about these cars. You go on to Google or you go into YouTube and you do a search, and there will be an answer to whatever question you've got on these cars. So I'm really looking forward to keeping the car running well and doing the work myself. Which, Sammy, the original owner, did a lot of his own work, he did a lot of mechanical work himself. But he was also somewhat OCD about the condition of the car, waxing it and keeping it clean, and, again, it's reflected. So we're going to take a look at the car, some closer elements, details of the car.