A couple of weeks ago, I walked past this Alpinweiss 1986 E28 while on the way to the town centre. I’d seen it around, and the plate sounded vaguely familiar. A glance at a Finnish BMW forum confirmed my memory; the white 518 had been a project car/daily driver and had received a host of fixes during a couple of years, namely a gearbox replacement and some differential work while accompanying another white E28. The next owner had spruced up the appearance by getting rid of some annoyingly peeking door rust.

When I noticed the car was also for sale for a couple grand, it didn’t sound bad.

By far, this 518i on BBS replicas was the nicest old street Beamer I had seen for a while, as other E28:s had been a lot more rusty and the M535i was more of a display object. Yeah, the M10B18 engine is still nothing spectacular other than reliability-wise, but it grows on you. The parking ticket isn’t the only thing tacked on the BM; there’s also a hood corner painted in Deutschland-coloured stripes.

What is there to damn, then? Well, some days ago the seller updated his ad, slashing the price. He had drifted the white E28 into a curb, tucking the passenger side wheels under the car. Right now, it needs work and isn’t close to driveable any time soon – unless you happen to sit on E28 suspension parts and trailing arms. Today, the price sits at 400 EUR; that’s about a quarter of what a clean E28 would fetch.

Would you pick up the pieces and rebuild the 518i?

[Images: Copyright 2012 Hooniverse/Antti Kautonen]