Introducing project Rottweil! (Patreon)

Say Hallo to a complete mess - 2003 E39 530i Touring finished in Toledo blue over gray leather interior! Yup, another classic, trusty and affordable M54 is back on the channel!

Ever since driving Timo's E39 528i Touring, it hit me back how much I love the E39 platform with an Inline-6 engine. How stable, quiet and overall much more comfortable it is compared to my current daily, project Cologne, E46 325i.
Btw, Timo's old Touring is still with Patreon Luis. He's done 18.000 km with it, completed a lot of work, uses it to haul stuff to his DJing gigs all around Germany and since January, he's in Spain for the semester and took the 5er with him. It truly ended up in the right hands and is being used as it should be.

Anyway, I started casually browsing the ads, and came across this thoroughly worn-out bucket of magnificence. Everything I ever wanted in E39 Touring. Very well equipped with some rare options: a heated steering wheel, active massaging seats, high-gloss shadowline window trim, and other cool goodies like xenon headlights, 16:9 Navi, rear sunshades, factory tow hook, heated seats with lumbar support, slicktop (no sunroof), electro-chrome power folding mirrors... and most importantly great color combo.

It's actually a twin to my first BMW I had in California, facelift Toledo blue/gray 530i, except this one is a Touring. The car that started all of this for me.

In some ways, this is the best petrol engine for E39. Compared to its V8 brothers, M54B30 is lighter, handles much better as it has a steering rack, it's more reliable, more economical and easier to maintain.

This one has around 220-230k km (136-140k miles) on the clock. Comes with a 5-speed clunkomatic which, admittedly, is pretty good for daily driving. But! We might do a 6-speed manual swap at one point. I found it listed for 4.450€ ($4800/£3900) by a dealer in Rottweil. Looked pretty decent in the pictures with no obvious flaws and was told over the phone it doesn't have issues. Well, you can see in the pictures that I took what I found in person.
Cosmetically, really rough with scratches and dents everywhere. Mechanically, it's perfect! Nope. The engine is knocking (not what you might think) and working rough, oils leaks (I know, I couldn't believe it either), suspension shot, brakes shot, tires shot, the driver's seat had a special feature where you turn the heating on and it starts throwing actual sparks. In other words, thoroughly used and abused old car. 

Most people would run far, far away, which is what the previous owner did, but I can see past its obvious issues and recognize a car with very good bones. It's an original German market car, hence high equipment, 3 sets of keys, original service book, 2 or 3 owners (can't remember), savable original paint all around and that means no accidents.
It's surprisingly rust-free where it matters, the underside is very clean and typical rust spots on E39 like around the fuel filler cap, jacking points, ends of side skirts, doors, and fender edges are all rust-free. However, it's not totally rust-free, there's minor rust on the tailgate and trunk hatch which is pretty much unavoidable on the Touring and rust starting underneath the rear left taillight. That's actually not bad for an E39 that's been exposed to salty German winters. 

The bottom line; it's a Facelift, last year, fantastically equipped E39 Touring with no structural rust aka the perfect basis for a project! I walked back into their office to discuss the unrealistic price and was told they could do 4k, to which I responded I'm not sure I'd pay 2k for it. The lady promptly laughed me out of the office saying this isn't a car for me, it's not meant to be put back on German roads, but rather to be sold for export. Meaning, it would end up being crushed or parted out. Blasphemy! This example deserves to be saved!

I started WhatsaApping with the boss of the dealership and I offered a cool 1.500 European shillings. After some back and forth, we settled at 1.600€ ($1.7k/£1.4k). I actually bought it back in December of 2021. It was in the background of some videos, but I never had the time for it.

The plan is to mechanically and cosmetically restore this gem and turn it into a next, comfy daily that we are then going to supercharger (evil noises). That being said, project Cologne is not going anywhere. E46 doesn't have a lot of value and I'm too emotionally attached to it as it was one of the first projects on the channel. We will be doing a 330i swap on it in the future, minus the supercharger, but plus spicy Schrick cams and a tune. Once I find a donor 330i 6-speed naturally. Still looking without luck.

I'm thinking to start working on project Rottweil once we finish project Chicago, Alpina B7. It doesn't need engine removal like project Frankfurt, E92 M3 and project Skovde, E39 M5 do. Ergo, it shouldn't take terribly long to fix it and I can do it alongside project Marsellie, E31 850i to diversify the content.

The latest news on Alpina B7, we are due on or a bit after 15th of February to show up in Cologne at the Gyeon facility for a final detail and PPF. After that, dyno run and hopefully, visit Alpina in Buchloe. Alpina has been very helpful and generous thanks to Andi Bovensiepen and they sent me a brand new Supercharger, underbody panels and a few other goodies which I need to install prior to going to Cologne.

At the moment, I'm editing the next episode of project Marseille. I assembled the bottom end, but I can't go any further with the engine as the heads are sent off to Poland to Top Mar Motorsworks to be ported and get a multi-angle valve job done. Awesome development and that's going to take a month or two, meanwhile, we can proceed to fix other stuff on the E31 and also start working on the newcomer, project Rottweil.

Hope you are excited for what's to come and thank you for your continues support! I'm not sure how to put into words how much I appreciate all of you! Love you all!