Posted by Remy Davison on January 30, 2005 at 06:20:04 from from 203.173.30.249
In Reply to: BMW 518 Automatic posted by Peter Hutchison on January 30, 2005 at 01:33:39:
See www.e12.de for more info. The car could be of either German or Sth African manufacture. It was the base E12 Five Series entrant, but most, I expect, came with the 4 or 5 spd transmissions.
The fact you wrote 'kilometers' suggests you're in Australia (yes? Have we emailed before, Peter?). Is it right-hand drive?
It was a popular model - 4 cyl E12s outsold 6s. Go figure. It's essentiall the 'economy' model, while the 520 and 520i were positioned as sports-economy models. Very few came to the US on the gray market (AFAIK) and even fewer to Oz, I'm betting. However, they're fairly common in Sth Africa and (at least used to be) pretty common in Europe/UK.
It won't have much Go but at least it looks as good as any other E12. IIRC, the rear brakes were drums on at least some of the 4cyl models.. The trans should be the ZF-3HP-22, which should last forever on a 1.8 engine. Probably 165 or so top speed. Same engine as carb E21 318/320 engines (and probably carb 2002 as well). So lots of parts available. Everything else from the engine back should be straight E12. Marc Cranswick will know much more.
Cheers,
RD
'81 528i E12 Polaris
'81 635CSi E24 Sapphire Blau
'83 528i E12/8 Rubinrot
'84 528i E28 Hennarot