2000 BMW M Roadster Z3M, S50B32

This 2000 BMW M Roadster is finished in Imola Red over black and is offered from Bryanston by bryanston_zm, about this seller, its third owner and the keeper of the car for eleven years. It carries the 3.2 litre S50B32 straight six, the engine the rest of the world received rather than the American S52, drives through the five speed manual, and shows 128,600km.

The question on a Z3M is the rear subframe and the boot floor around its mounting points, which crack. Reinforcement plates were fitted by the previous owner in July 2016 at 92,600km, his invoice is published, and the plates, the boot floor and every mounting point were photographed on a lift for this listing.

Asked at intake whether that work was done correctly, the seller declined. His stated reason is that he is not a fabricator, has never welded anything, and will not offer an opinion a bidder might rely on. He published the photographs instead and invited anybody with the expertise to form their own view in the comments, which two people have done.

The rest of the file covers what an S50 needs. A clutch and rear main seal in 2018, the VANOS unit rebuilt with the updated seal kit in 2021, and the entire cooling system in 2023. The flaws stated are a light cold start rattle that has not been taken back to the specialist, an original soft top crazed at both lower rear corners, a worn driver's bolster, weak air conditioning at idle and a resprayed front bumper.

The Z3M took the S50B32 out of the European M3, put it in a short wheelbase roadster built in Spartanburg, and gave it a rear axle that had started life under a 3-Series compact. The result made 321 horsepower in this specification, had no traction control worth the name, and earned a reputation for being unforgiving that it has never entirely lost.

The subframe is the thing to know. The rear mounting points load a section of boot floor that was not designed for what the M cars do to it, and on hard driven examples the metal tears around the mounts. The fix is a set of reinforcement plates welded in, and by now a large proportion of surviving cars have had it done, well or badly. Whether it has been done, and how, is the first question and the last one.

South African cars carry the S50B32 rather than the S52 fitted to North American cars, which matters both for power and for how the market values them. This one has the correct engine for its market and the seller has published the engine number so it can be checked.