All, As the owner of an Edition Series E28, I discovered just how little the BMW community knows about them. I also discovered how little the owners of the Highlines, M5's and Individual's know about their cars.
It is time to remove all of you back seat bottoms, carefully remove the build sheet, scan and post the build sheet of all these cars, so there is a proccess in determining the "Exact" build of any and all, specialty E28 around the world.
I the early to mid 70's, I discovered that there are cars and fake cars, the topic at the time was the '68 Dart 340 and 426 lightweights that were supplied through Chrysler for "Race Use Only" and the sudden presence of a lightweight in our community. It was determined that the car was a fake and did not command the price the owner wanted.................It was explained that the build sheet was the only means of knowing what the car really was. This has been a N/A Muscle Car tradition, since before I came along.
Certain members of this community are trying to fashion a data base, which will describe the build details of our cars, and this is an excellent first step.
Just how many E28's came with the Red Leather interior c/w an upgrade sound system and a funky package tray? Nobody has a clue.
How many Individual cars were built new? What about the funky colours?
Good idea, except my car doesn't have the build sheet. The dealer tells me by the VIN what th option list is, but there's no build sheet under the seat.
Toys, the recipt has its value, but does not show the build number, and all the other detail.
If you look at mine, the is the Sonder # (special number) that describes the base build, the option numbers cover the "In addition to" features. The paint code 0490 and interior code 9990 are part of the base build as they do not appear in the option catagory
We won't know what we have until we can better decifer what the base build is, especially mine, where the market was japan, the build was unique and there is no one who has stepped forward with any detail.
My car ended up in canada with buffalo interior and rubber door skins, so I suspect that the originals door skins have been removed and replaced, but am not certain about it. I'm not even certain which plant it was built at, Dingolfing, Garchang or Rosslynn in South Africa.
Another questions is: What does the option 0940 include, with no concept of the base I can only assume it was all the M-Tec doo dads, steering wheel, wheel flares, wheels, suspension etc.
Too many questions and no answers.
I'm sure we will learn more once we have a few to study and compare.
What a breakthrough, in the last couple of hours I discovered 2-webpage references to the Japanese E28-535i Edition5 cars.
Both are Schwarzblau, both have the Buffalo Hide interior with shadowline, and both carry the m-tec badge. One is trimed with the M535i full body kit and the other with the Zehnder front spoiler.
Well, I've never taken out my back seat and I'm not going to unless I have to. Did that on a previous E28 and the carpet fit was never quite as good afterwards!
I have records of all of the 187 GB cars.
Of these, 3 had upholstery code 9990, which is described by BMW UK as "Special Upholstery".
One car has option 068 - "Full Red Leather" (Cardinal red leather was available at the time but I don't know if it is actually that shade). It was a Press car and exterior finish is blue/black metallic (Schwarzblau).
Another car had option code 076 "Cherry red leather with white piping". The same car had option 074 too - "Cherry red leather steering wheel". This car was finished in "Glasurit white paint" - option 075. Believed pearlescent finish, as on various high-end Audis of the period.
The third car with Special Upholstery had Buffalo hide - in Nutria, also described as option code 097 (there were other 5 GB cars with Buffalo hide - Anthracite upholstery colour, code 0180). This car was Malachite green (one of 2 GB cars supplied that colour - the other had Pine green cloth).
Option 086 was "Complete Leather Pack", fitted to only two cars. Both were Blue/black metallic and had Silver leather (code 0233). A third car had Silver leather, I haven't quite worked out the option code translations on that. This car was Green/black metallic.
Option 940 is described here as "Special Request Trim". One of the two cars with this option code had Natural leather (Natur?) whilst the other car was the one with the cherry red leather and white piping described above. This doesn't seem logical or consistent, but that's how it is. So this code doesn't relate to M5 specific items - the M5 was a model in its own right and a "basic" M5 would have a specific Bill of Materials (BoM). An option code would only apply (to my mind) where there was a variation in the BoM.
I'm sure I've posted it before but here's the standard GB spec (i.e. all cars had these items supplied within the list price):
350 Green Tinted Glass
415 Rear Window Blind
498 Rear Seat Head Restraints
530 350 + Air Conditioning
780 BBS Wheels 7.50 x 16
850 Additional Petrol
401 Electric Sliding Roof
458 Electric Front Seats Adjustment
500 Headlight Wash-Wipe
716 M-Technic Rear Spoiler
812 GB Specification
In case you're wondering, additional petrol is so it doesn't conk out when coming off the ship....and I think 812 is an ordering code which added all of the items above it as a package.
There was quite a lot of variation in GB cars - whilst there were quite a few "Christmas trees", many were relatively basic (few or even no options) which I think were built for stock rather than against specific orders.
My own car has standard "comfort" seats with folding armrests (!) with Pacific blue cloth trim (and no M-Technic flashes). It was the only GB car supplied with that combination - all regular options, though the price list doesn't say that if you ordered standard seats in lieu of sports seats you didn't get the M-Technic logos!
I'd like to see more posts on these different details.
Forgot to add....I'm not convinced that the "Individual" programme was actually marketed as such when the E28 was current, though maybe someone can post more on this.
I do think, though, that if it wasn't around back then, the "Individual" programme simply formalised and added a visible branding to what was already taking place.
Yes - I believe BMW Individual only formalized the procedure for getting special options which was already possible if you had the right contats. It seems to have started off as an informal way of building special cars during the 1970's which amongst others led to a few dozen E12 533i's (predecessors to the M535i) being built for VIPs and other factory relations. This effort than spun off into BMW M GmbH and BMW Individual.
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