One of the rarer BMW models sold in the last 30 years is the car you’re staring at here: a V12-powered, six-speed manual equipped E31 coupe. Otherwise known as an 850i, this three pedal-equipped example is one of less than 1,000 made with the V12 and stick combination. Finding one of these cars in the condition as advertised here is particularly challenging given the upkeep costs, so if you’ve been hunting for one with these specs, check out the listing here on eBay where bids are at $25,000 with the reserve unmet.
The seller is looking for a Buy-It-Now price of $35,000 which really isn’t unreasonable considering the rarity and the condition on display here. Any car with a pillar-less design gets my attention, and the E31-series BMWs are among some of the most timeless ever built. The 850i sits in the ideal sweet spot of being from a different era of BMW culture and philosophy while also being modern enough that you can drive it without feeling like you’re lacking modern conveniences. The seller’s car looks handsome on a set of BMW M Parallel wheels, which are an OEM+ upgrade.
The seller claims the 850i otherwise remains in stock condition, and that’s a good thing considering how tricky these are to maintain. You definitely don’t want to start with a car that’s been hacked up or otherwise messed with. Really, the biggest obstacle to owning an E31 is buying a car that someone else has gotten midway through fixing before giving up after repair costs exceeded their desire to go on or some obscure part that’s gone out of production stopped the otherwise simple maintenance project in its tracks.
The seller claims the next owner will find no such issues here, with the 850i having been well maintained up until this point and lots of preventative work already done. The listing doesn’t go into great detail about the list of repairs performed, but the seller does call out soft brake lines and master cylinder as having been replaced. The combination of a stick shift and V12 should make any gearhead take note, but especially when found in coupe as striking as this 850i.
A “buzzin’ dozen”, by gar, it’s been a while, even though my reference has little, if anything to do with this monster, the likes we hadn’t seen since Jaguar, I think. Without question, BMW knew all about Americas catch phrase, “more must be better”, and viola. I thought the V10 Viper was too much, shows what I know. Never heard of this, makes total sense( cough), for the Autobahn, what a rush, for I-794 with a backup 4 miles long, not so much. What I have learned over the years, is the more cylinders, the smoother the engine, and I bet this thing sounds sweet. The po’ persons “shack” in the background indicates who might like this car. No offense to po’ people, that is.
The “po” persons shack and car are located in Mission, KS where the median income is $88,000.
Simply the most stunning BMW they made, smoother than a contested politicians best promises. Was this an effort to contest Aston Martin? Sweet note from the motor and though it’s 30+ years old I’ll bet very few here would push it out of their driveway should they find it there one morning.
Santa are you listening? It’s not too early to plan for next Christmas-and as a belated present that’s ok too!
Back before Chris Bangle permanently polluted BMW’s styling idiom they made cars that didn’t look like malignant Kias. The V12 complexity is a bit daunting but then these cars weren’t built for the faint of heart or the light of wallet. Regardless it’s nice to reflect on that golden age when BMW created cars that were genuinely worthy of automotive lust. Would that today’s Teutonic decision makers could somehow absorb the wondrousness of what their forebears created.
Nice, nice car.
Right on all counts. Last great BMW coupe. Would look great parked next to a Z8, no? Their styling has devolved into a cartoonish /Hot Wheels level of design.
If I had garage space and spare income to devote to the maintenance I would be hitting the BIN button instead of typing this.
My dream car, pity it isn’t RHD
The Ultimate Driving Machine 🇩🇪
My town’s full of these. In scrapyards. Parts are eye-wateringly expensive for the oily bits and non existents for body and interior parts. It’s a car that goes straight to the junkyard when the warranty expires. Shame.
It is not the typical BMW electrical Problems that bother me it is the problem of all BMW V-8’s and V-12’s and that is the short life of the Timing Chain Tensioners and Related bits. That is a pull the engine out job and it is not cheap on the V-8’s and it can be eye watering on the V-12’s. That the car is beautiful and at the peak of elegance for BMW is true.
It should be noted that this production is within the time frame that BMW thought the cooling system should be a replacement item. That included the water pump, expansion tank, and frequently the radiator as well as the thermostat and hoses. Just remember that there is double the bits on a V-12 over that of the sweet BMW 6 pot units which are so elegant and reliable. That they felt the same way about brake rotors, suspension bushings and other bits does not help either.
This is not the sports car that many would think but a luxury touring car of great ability and comfort. What it does not have in modern bits, in general you do not need and the electrical system has far fewer computer controlled systems which to me is a huge advantage over current models not withstanding the UGLY looks of current BMW’s.
Yeah, they must have been terrible engines if they went into McLaren F1s.
Interesting that everyone speaking ill of this car/engine (and the demographics of possible interested folks) have zero experience with this engine and car. Maintenance costs are higher, of course, yet a competent DIYer can do most of it. You could pull the engine to do the timing chain items or not-the procedure to do it, engine in or out, is time consuming but is not difficult for the competent, literate DIYer. The killer on these is parts availability, and rust. If you get one without rust, it’s a keeper. Electronics are simple and issues are rare and fairly easy to address. These are well built, reliable, and pleasing to drive.
Back in the day, I had a ’90 750iL that I bought for a song from one of the lawyers I worked for. He paid $60K cash (it stickered at $70K) and only had a year warranty. He had tried to trade it in with low miles (39K) in 1995 and the dealer offered him $18K for it. He sold it to me for that amount as an extended middle digit to the dealer. There were a couple of issues with it that I fixed immediately, like changing the brakes (the dealer wanted an eyewatering amount of money for that) and things I didn’t, like the overhead cam sync motor losing sync and the engine going into ‘limp’ mode, The lawyer warned me it would do that, the short term fix was easy. Turn off the engine, then restart it and it was in sync again. Much cheaper doing that than fixing it. What cost an arm and a leg was the recurring problem of blown head gaskets. At one point, the repair bills were like have an expensive car payment. I sold it to a guy for $22K after having driven it for 3 years. It was the fastest car I ever drove and the luxurious interior was something I will likely never experience again.
This is a great looking car, an LS / Tremec swap would make it a reliable and great driving car.
The BMW V12 engines and ZF gearboxes are totally reliable and very easy to maintain, I have over the years owned five V12 BMW’s and serviced countless more, not saying that an LS engine is not a great engine but there is nothing wrong with the M60 and M62 engines.
Yes of course!! Naturally we should swap high quality vey reliable entertaining and potent original parts for inferior crap that has no place in it.
Had many BMWs and this is perhaps my favorite for looks and style . however then there is the matter of the V12. sorry to say that just has never been anything other than a place to spend loads of money. It was an attempt to reach technical excellence but it was far too complicated and you will easily be making large car payments in the form of mechanic visits going forward. Too bad, as it is a beautiful car.
I had a BMW customer that wanted one of these with a 6 speed bad. (I was the service manager at a BMW store at the time.) He found one (approx. in the year 1998) in the mid-west at a dealer I knew and trusted. It was sold to him noting that it had the German chip in the computer. He picked up the car and drove it the 2,000 miles home with no issues. He brought the car into me and asked me to take it for a drive and give him my opinion of the way it drove. It was very nice, smooth and SLOW! Not Yugo slow, but slow for what it was. My techs plugged it in and it did not have the Euro chip. So the selling dealer sent him one. He installed it and the car was only marginally faster, but still not what you would expect. He took the car to THE premier BMW tuner in California and selected a middle of the price range for an upgrade. He went to pickup the car a couple of weeks later, payed the bill and when the kid brought the car around he forgot that he was driving a manual transmission car and proceeded to crash the car (HARD) over a parking curb. The business was very apologetic, said that they would fix the car and GIVE him the top performance package to make up for the problem that they caused. He accepted and picked up the car 3-4 weeks later. IT WAS THEN A ROCKET! (I believe it was now a twin turbo!) The customer was very pleased with the performance, in fact, it was “Too fast for this 80 year old guy. Going to 100 was fine, but the car was not even working hard at that point.” So his solution was to drop the car off to me when ever he left town on an airplane (no parking fees at the airport either) for a few weeks with instructions to “driver her hard and fast!” It was a tough life, but I was glad to help him out!
I think the stories are some of the best parts of owning a car.
Lots of “eyewatering” comments being made about this German cash subtractor. Good looking hardtop, though.
Really. They need a new adjective.
About 10 years ago I used to watch an online show called Drive and in 1 episode they compiled a list of cheap exotic used cars all under 20 grand, the top 5 cheapest were V12’s because when they give engine trouble you are going to spend more than the car is worth in repairs so off to the crusher they go. That said a V12 luxury car with a manual trans makes my heart rate race and if the chips were down maybe this old mechanic has 1 more engine repair in him.
always loved these, fantastic looks and GT performance. I know, I know, lots of expensive maintenance, but if you can turn a wrench, maybe it could be justified, If I didn’t have too many projects, I would love to park one of these in the garage to wrench on.
These comments on this car are the best I have read in 3 years. Very informative and fun to read
I would love to rent one for a week!
I believe that (in the UK) the manual gearbox was only fitted to the 850Csi, that had a larger capacity engine 5.6 litres, roller rockers and rear wheel steering from memory. very rare.
This is as close as you can get to an 850csi, which is as close as BMW got to producing an M8. I owned this car, a V12 six speed, in red. It was an amazing GT. Not a true sports car, but gorgeous, fast, and extremely comfortable. I also upgraded to M-parallel wheels and added the csi front air dam. Made a huge difference – made her look a bit menacing but still beautiful.
BMW had a spotty reputation for styling, but they hit it right with this one. My 850 i story-
Driving my XJS from Nice to Paris in 1995 up the Peage’ cruising at about 110 and I see headlights coming up fast from behind. An 850 passes me, so I thought I’ll join in the fun and I pull in behind him and we run at about 140 for 20 miles or so, then near St. Etienne he signals to pull into a gas stop and I follow thinking maybe we can swap some stories. When he stops, his wife and 2 little kids get out and my interest in speaking to him goes to zero- I pull back on the highway and continue on.
Says more about you than him.
Personally I did not really like the interior, the only large BMW model from that era without wood trim, I did notice some wood in the car featured, maybe we got that but you could not see it when seated, for my money I always had a 750i or il, with the rear boxes removed and twin tail pipes, I even built myself an M7 using a short wheel base shell from a 735i and a wrecked 750il, electric recaro seats, 18″ M wheels and M steering wheel, bugger me, just as I finished it BMW brought out a short 750i sport, to the same spec as I had built,
BMW reserved the wood trim for the 850csi.
” You see this watch? This watch cost more than your HOUSE. I drove here tonight in a $70,000 BMW. It takes brass balls to sell real estate.” The fabulous Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross. Talking about his red BMW 850 parked outside in the rain. Like Jim Rome and the XR4ti that scene has to be mentioned when one of these shows up.
I would have thought that the redline on the tach would be higher for such an exotic OHC motor.
Crazy that the Chevy Citation x-11 of all cars has a complete excellent gage pkg, but this has 2 gages missing & the temp gage has no numbers on it – why do most imports not want the driver to know what temp their car’s coolant is when running/warmed up? Makes no sense.
How such a ’60s type hardtop could be imported in 1991 is beyond me – i’m guessing either the amer feds missed this model, were paid off , or BMW paid a fine. The windshield pillars are not even massive.
They are massive on modern Camaros & Challys AND those are not 2 door hardtops, having a metal roof support between the door glass & rear side window glass.
US $31,100.00
55 bids Ended Saturday, 01:22 PM
Condition:
Used
Ended:
Dec 30, 2023 11:22:11 PST