Finding my Old E46 BMW M3

When I went back to New York City a few weeks ago, I found an old bill of sale for my E46 BMW M3. I've always had a lot of nostalgia for that M3 because it was the first cool car I ever bought. Additionally, it is the only car that I have actually purposely procured, which isn’t how I usually buy my cars. Generally, I am much too cheap to spec out a car from the dealership, since the wiggle room outside of MSRP is less. Instead, I'm an opportunistic car buyer. I prefer to buy a car off the lot where I can negotiate a better price, knowing that dealerships are more motivated to sell inventory they're still financing.

That said, there were no M3s available at any dealership in the Tri-State Area. I called one dealership after another, until I ended up with Ridgefield BMW in Connecticut. Of all the dealership, they were willing to give me the most discount. So in doing the math, I decided to order my build. It was either I waited for one to become available or had one built. I didn’t want to wait without certainty, so I chose the latter.

Still, I had to wait for my build. It’s not like I was going to get my M3 right away. The dealer informed me that it was going to take five to six months. As for my build, I pretty much ordered the bare minimum — what the dealer called a stripper. I didn’t want to pay for more than I needed. So, I deleted every option except for the air conditioning and the CD player. Oh yes, and I also order my M3 as an SMG. Looking back, you must be wondering what was I thinking? However, back in the noughties, any car with a semi automatic transmission was regarded more favorably than any run-of-the-mill vanilla manual transmission. And to be fair, the SMG wasn’t really all that bad in manual mode. It was awful as an automatic, but it was quick to downshift in manual.

Anyway, when all was said and done, I got my M3 in 2006 for a tad over $46K including all the dealership and registration fees. More importantly, I didn’t have to wait too long for it. Since my build had no options, including no sunroof, it jumped the queue on the assembly line. I literally took deliver of my M3 in less than three months. I loved my M3. It had silver gray metallic exterior and Imola red interior. I drove it for a few years until fate changed my circumstances. I still cannot believe I traded in my M3 for a Cadillac Escalade ESV.

Not my E46 M3. My biggest regret is that I never took a photo of my M3. This BaT example comes the closest. Like mine, it is also a New York State licensed car from Connecticut.

I’ve always wondered what happened to my M3. Despite the fact I got an SMG, I have always regret of selling it. In fact, it’s the only car I’ve ever had that I regretted of selling. And it’s not because of anything other than the fact that it was a cool car I owned from its first registration. Every options (or lack of it) was decided by me. Every mile I put onto my M3 was driven by me. The smell in the car was mine and the groove in the driver seat leather was mine. And, I love the color combination. I really loved the Imola red interior. In short, everything about that car was me until it wasn’t, when I traded in the car. Beyond that point, it lived a different life divined shaped by different owners.

To find another M3 just like the one I traded-in hasn’t been easy. Believe me, I’ve been trying to find one with the same color combination for quite some time. To be frank, I haven’t had any luck in finding one. The closest one I found was on Bring A Trailer many years too late. The difficulty in finding a similar spec’ed M3 made me all the more regretful of selling my M3. One notable reason magnifying my regret is the condition of the seats of pre-owned E46 M3’s. They’re all awful. The leather is cracked from years of UV exposure and stretched from the weight of many different owners. Had I kept my M3, I wouldn’t be having this problem. My M3 would not have had cracked or stretch leather seats - or at least that is how I would have imagined it. Perhaps Mary Douglas was onto something in her book, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. The inheritance of a previous owner’s presence can have an overwhelming impact on how one feels about a pre-owned car. That said, my scrutiny seems to only be this acute towards pre-owned E46 M3’s. I guess it has something to do with bias originating from my previous ownership. I guess I cannot help but make comparisons and have feelings of what it could have been had I not traded in my M3.

Thing is, I know there is nothing intrinsically special about my particular M3. And yet, my thoughts invariably drift towards the search for its replacement whenever I am foraging online for another car. I believe my desire to find another E46 M3 is greatly motivated by the experience I had with my M3. It was thrilling. It was the acceleration and the handling. It was drama to all the senses. And, it was livable. It was a wonderfully balanced and capable car. In fact, I even drove it in the winter, up snowy mountain roads, with snow tires. So, it’s no wonder I’ve been trying to recapture the experience of owning and driving an E46 M3. It is just I haven’t been able to find one in a condition to my liking.

My old M3, having passed from one owner to another, tarted out and living an unloved existence.

Now, fast forward to present day 2025. As I have mentioned earlier, I found my old bill of sale with my M3’s VIN number. Immediately, I googled it up. What were the chances I would find it. Apparently, very good. I found it right away! Auspicious? It seemed to be that way. It was in Los Angeles. And as luck would have it, I was going to be staying in Los Angeles soon for a few weeks. It was almost as if the sun, moon, and planets were all aligned leading me towards this long awaited reunion between man and machine, long separated and soon to be rejoined through the canyons and Pacific Coast Highway on a spirited early Sunday morning drive.

Unfortunately, reality seldom matches up with one’s wild imagination. I clicked on the website and saw the photos of my once dear M3. Plainly, the sun, moon, and planets were not aligned and I wasn’t going to go on a spirited canyon drive early Sunday morning. In short, I wasn’t lucky. Let me just say that time hasn’t been kind to my old M3. It had the appearance of a car that had been molested by years of different transient owners changing hand from one impecunious owner to another, all tarting it out with unsightly superficial modifications. How my heart fell. My M3 had fake carbon wraps on sections of its bonnet, kidney grills, and front splitter. And, it also has a fake CSL bumper. It was hideous. As for the interior, the once pristine Imola red leather was in an awful state. The leather had cracks and was stretched from 150k miles of sitting. On top of that, the leather had the soot and grime of neglect and indifference. Clearly, my old M3 wasn’t loved by its subsequent owners. Seeing it again for the first time after two decades, I could only describe the experience as seeing my long lost kidnapped child on the face of a milk carton.

For a moment, I had considered saving my old M3 from the clutches of indigent disregard. I felt this strange connection to it, even after all these years apart. Although I had no right to feel this way, I was really angry at the negligence of its current owners. How could an owner allow such a well balanced and capable car fall into such abandonment. But then again, it’s not as if I kept it all these years too. Once outside the reach of a diligent owner, like me, I guess it’s anybody’s guess how a car would live out the rest of its life. For the most part, they will live hard lives. And for high performance cars past its prime, it’s usually a life of high use and low maintenance. They get no love from their owners. The car becomes a victim of its depreciated value and expired manufacturer’s warranty. It’s driven hard and it’s not fixed when warning light turns on. And so, I had to let go the thought of restoring it. At the very least, the math didn’t make sense.

However, the process of grieving for my old M3 was cleansing. It allowed me to let go of this fanciful dream of making it right with delusions of concourse restoration. And so, I found the resolve to continue my search for another E46 M3 with more flexibility. Did I want another silver metallic exterior with Imola red interior? Do I want more options this time around? Do I want a sunroof? Do I want a six speed manual? I mean, I could go for Laguna Seca blue exterior with Dove gray interior. The skies the limits with what I can get — except for that pesky matter of interiors past its best before date. And that’s the problem. I just hate the condition of the leather in all remaining E46 M3’s. To actually bite the bullet and buy one means that I would either have to accept the condition as is or undergo the inconvenience and added cost of reupholstering the seats.

The leather is all cracked and stretched. This is what I dislike most about pre-owned BMW’s.

Needless to say, I passed on the opportunity to buy it back. But then, what about my E46 M3 itch? Well, I could expand my search across the pond. Now that I reside part of the time in Switzerland, I am no longer shackled to inventory within the contiguous United States. I actually have access to European and Swiss domestic market cars. Unfortunately, most of the E46 M3’s in Europe are in even worse conditions than the examples in the United States. Worse still, European E46 M3’s are generally spec’ed with the most boring colors. And don’t get me started with Swiss E46 M3’s. They only come in black or gray.

That said, there are other E46 options in Europe that was never offered in the United States. Specifically, I am referring to the E46 CSL. Unlike the regular vanilla E46 M3, the CSL did not come with leather seats. Instead it has alcantara seats that seem to hold up better. Of course, the CSL is much rarer, which makes it significantly more expensive than a run-of-the-mill E46 M3. On top of that, it doesn’t come in manual transmission. They only came in SMG. Alternatively, if I am willing to buy a right hand drive E46 M3 and leave it in Hong Kong, I could find examples in better color combinations. For example, there is a Luna Seca blue on Dove gray M3 in manual transmission for sale in Hong Kong. Of course, the only drawback to this example is that it has had eight owners to date. Still, a tempting opportunity. But as a right hand drive car, it wouldn’t make sense for me to import it into the United States.

Frankly, the most logical solution for me is to get the E46 CSL. That said, it would still be a compromise. It wouldn’t have the problem of leather cracked and stretched, since it only comes in alcantara bucket seats. However, it only comes in black or gray. And, I would still miss having my Imola red interior. As for the SMG transmission, I can always swap it out for three pedals and a six speed manual. But, all that comes with added cost on top of the cost of the car, which will be four to five times the price of a regular E46 M3. Then again, it would be the ultimate version of the E46 M3.