We’ve all been there: a project car gets so far only for us to run out of steam and wonder if we’re in it for the long haul. I have long been challenged by the notion that the years of my life dedicated to seeing a project through to completion are worth it, but when I look at how close the seller of this BMW 2800CS got to finishing before throwing in the towel, I feel even more confident of my resolve to see the work through. You don’t get back the hours lost moving a non-rolling car and tracking down parts, but even that’s not enough of a reason to finish this gorgeous E9 roller. Find the car here on eBay where bidding has reached $15,000 with no reserve.

This really is a sad tale of how certain events can take the wind out of your sails on a big-time project. The seller bought this 2800CS from the widow of the previous owner and used it for a few years before deciding to tear it down for restoration. He notes that it was a life-long California car, so perhaps it was one of the few that didn’t end up besieged by rust. The seller had a friend’s shop do the initial tear-down and disassembly work, but then disaster struck: the shop went out of business and his friend stopped working there, all while his car was in pieces inside. This is one of my worst nightmares.

As you can see, the current state of the car is quite nice, and the seller did do some very heavy lifting to get it to this point. The bodywork phase actually went well, with the E9 stripped and painted in its factory color of Granada by a well-known California shop called Autobahn Auto Body. The seller claims the body shop did an excellent job getting the body prepped and painted correctly, and it certainly appears excellent in photos. Sadly, when he went to retrieve the car from his friend’s shop, he found the car was missing several pieces that had been removed, which were almost certainly lost in the shuffling that happens when ownership changes and the person watching over your build goes to work somewhere else.

With his fears mounting that he would soon lose even more parts, he pulled his 2800 out of the shuttered shop and brought it home. It would seem his enthusiasm had waned after several months of frustration, a sentiment I can absolutely understand. I have sold three projects over the last few years solely because the shops working on them were either extremely slow on progress (but fast on invoicing) and/or generally showing a lack of regard for the vehicle in question. A toxic shop relationship is a serious buzzkill when undertaking a serious restoration project, and this clean E9 project clearly looks like a case of “my loss, you gain.”