From the September/October 2026 issue of Car and Driver.
In 2019, I was in the second month of a seven-month tour in Michigan as Car and Driver’s print director, and an atmospheric depression sent me into a low-grade depression. So I decided to buy a convertible in hopes of summoning the sun. My ragtop wants were rear-wheel drive, a manual transmission, and four or more seats. There are a lot of ways to satisfy those wishes: a third-generation Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 convertible (hold my beer), a Suzuki Samurai (I accept your challenge), a Ford Model T (“fill it up with petroleum distillate”).
A love of build quality prevailed. I zeroed in on a 28K-mile 1991 BMW 325i (E30 generation) convertible located in Fenton, Michigan. In February 1989, my mom test-drove an E30 convertible. She has no memory of this formative event, and she didn’t end up buying one, but the experience never left me. The smell took me right back there. This car had the characteristic E30 musk—a mix of new-car scent, leather, and cat pee.
I bought it from the original owner, who had taken European delivery in the summer of 1990. While it’s usually a bad idea to buy a used car from the land of the ice and snow, convertibles can be diamonds in the rust thanks to owners who hibernate them during the salt months. Service records stretched all the way back to that European vacation, and the interior and exterior were in new-old-stock condition. Unfortunately, most of the fluids, hoses, and belts dated back to the Bush administration—the Herbert Walker one.
I bought it and went to work on the long list of deferred maintenance. After that, I lowered it on H&R springs, mounted 15-inch wheels and tires, and drove it all summer. The rain stopped. Then I brought it back to Los Angeles. In case you haven’t heard, it never rains in California.
I drove it on dates with my now wife. I took it up the Pacific Coast Highway and to Monterey Car Week. It was noisy with the top up but an endorphin-flooding delight with the top down. It was especially lovely at night, with the warm smell of carnitas rising up through the air from L.A.’s ubiquitous streetside taco stands.
BMW’s 2.5-liter inline-six spun like there was honey in the crankcase, a brand hallmark until the company lost its mind and started pumping fake engine noises into the cabin. Even with a mere 168 horsepower, the 325i’s brakes felt over-taxed. But what really dated the experience were the structural shakes and ultraslow steering (3.9 turns lock-to-lock), which made tight corners a hand-flailing affair.
When I decided to sell the convertible to fund a new family car, I emailed the original owner to see if he wanted it back. He declined, so it went to the auction site bringatrailer.com. For $99, Bring a Trailer creates a detailed, personalized ad for your car using photos you submit and posts it for a weeklong auction. Questions flow in through the comments as dilettantes and doyens debate and pick apart the listing. Bids trickle in slowly at first and then all at once in the final minutes.
The auction close was a potent cocktail of terror and excitement. When the stress test ended, a “contact buyer” link appeared on my screen, with a phone number and a name. When I put the number into my phone, a pre-pandemic conversation popped up. Surprise twist: The original owner won the auction. A second bite at the BMW. A divorce undone. A mind changed. He took it home 24 hours later and promised to drive it more this time around. I’m measuring the garage for a Model T.
Tony Quiroga is a 20-plus-year-veteran Car and Driver editor, writer, and car reviewer and the 19th editor-in-chief for the magazine since its founding in 1955. He has subscribed to Car and Driver since age six. "Growing up, I read every issue of Car and Driver cover to cover, sometimes three or more times. It's the place I wanted to work since I could read," Quiroga says. He moved from Automobile Magazine to an associate editor position at Car and Driver in 2004. Over the years, he has held nearly every editorial position in print and digital, edited several special issues, and also helped produce C/D's early YouTube efforts. He is also the longest-tenured test driver for Lightning Lap, having lapped Virginia International Raceway's Grand Course more than 2000 times over 12 years.
Extracted and lightly reformatted for readability. · Source: pt