This was when BMW design peaked

Literally no other large car will ever look that slender and beautiful

cadillac ct6

Yes

I do agree with this. The E38 was the most 7-series like and that is definitely where BMW's design peaked

fuckhuge barge that looks like a dagger

It's true. The E38 is even better looking than the W215 and I'm a massive Mercedes fanboy.

became so rare to see them in original condition, fucking gopniks and fuccbois

ALL OF MY HNNNNGGHHH

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>search for it under 200.000km
>180 results
>filter out autotragics
>13 results
welp

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those barges were old people cars when they were new so most of them were auto

What did you expect? It's the luxury class and people who bought S class and 7 usually didn't want to shift like the plebs.
I also prefer manual transmissions but that's just how it is/was.

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>hurr muh manual
>in a luxobarge
Buy a fucking Miata if you wanna be a boyracer.

Back when they were new it kinda surprised me how the E38 was slimmer looking than the smaller E39

the point is they used to come in manual even the w140 s-class but baby boomers are literally the worst generation to ever walk the planet. the e38 and w140 were cars for the baby boomers parents who could actually drive manuel

probably because longboi

>fuckhuge barge
>smaller than the E39

>>smaller than the E39

Don't look at the fucking numbers. The E38 is sleek and sexy and low and the E39 is just fat

that's exactly what I meant earlier. on paper it's fuck huge but it looks way more elegant than the kinda chubby E39

e39 is tall and narrow the e38 is wider so it has better proportions but e39 compared to a f30 the e39 is way sleeker

>but e39 compared to a f30 the e39 is way sleeker
That's no wonder since it literally all went downhill after E38+E39

basically when a burger was put in charge of designing their cars is when bmw lost its way

I'd say that was just a symptom.
Reasoning behind it was the mandatory bloating of cars and the reason behind that was new almost worldwide (because changing to global market first instead of domestic) safety standards heavily fucking with proportions.

>He's never hooned a big body car

Sorry you're so sheltered

it's just a shame they're such unreliable pieces of shit

t. son of a man who's owned 5 in 10 years.

when bangle wanted to get rid of buttons is when the birth of the infotainment system came to be which brought in all the pedestrian crash safety regulations because now people cant just use a fucking button to get their radio to do something thanks to that fucking idiot bangle

you never let an artist design a fucking car thats the issue with cars now

could not agree more
the facelifted e38 is the second best looking car to ever come out of germany

Which engines did they have?

Classic exposed twin headlight design is the peak senpai.

>Literally no other large car will ever look that slender and beautiful
Except you are wrong. Jaguar has been for a while going through a rebirth with beautiful long luxury cars.

doesn't really matter any bmw that isn't a 3-series will have a lot of issues

nah

Let's be honest here, the current XJ design is old as shit...JLR need to come up with something new and exciting.

They can still be fast. My dad had an auto 735 modified way back (1990 or so). Would keep up with porsches and do around 300km/hr peak (he had it checked with speed gun as was an ex traffic cop) (had engine bored and reworked as well as some other stuff speedometer topped out at 260 but he said it was pinging off of the needle at the 0). He literally drove 800km in about 4 hours (including fuel stops) when he had to get from northern end of South Africa to a hospital in Durban when I was due to be born, even had a police escort that had no chance of keeping up. He said it was amazing how the car just sucked down to the road at speed. He'd regularly sit at 240km/hr on the highway (traffic laws in SA were lax usually a speeding fine as long as you weren't driving stupidly) he would only open the car up later at night on the highways when he knew traffic was minimal.

WHAT THE FUCKKKK

I didn't know they also look good in white

the E38 was the definitive 7 series and the E39 was the definitive 5 series
3 series is debatable, it could really be any of them but the current lineup

1st had a 4.0 M60, the block cracked
2nd had a 4.4 M62, the gearbox decided to become a blender
3rd was a 2.8 M52 I6, the heating matrix broke, would've cost more than he paid for the car to fix so he said fuck it
4th was a 4.4 M62 in perfect gunmetal grey, but with a sort of depth to it, and wheels from a later gen. some cunt keyed it and that seemed to curse it. top hose went, replaced that, various brake, steering & wheel issues, fixed those. then the gearbox, like the 2nd, became a blender.
the current 3.5 M62 has had various little faults all costing reasonable amounts, as he spent 3k on it he doesn't mind spending 300 to fix shit every few months (yeah, that's how frequent this whale keeps beaching itself)

its current problem is *hopefully* being fixed but has taken 3 fucking months to diagnose. it kept going into safe mode when starting while still warm or sitting in traffic for 20 minutes, abs & tcs lights come on and all the dials & power steering stopped working. our usual garage couldn't properly eliminate the codes so we took it to a BMW dealership, they PROMISED us they would fix it. they failed, instead of meeting my dad face-to-face when he came to collect it, the service rep faggot took a 2 hour lunch break. they misdiagnosed & replaced a gearbox tilt (?) sensor, which meant taking out the driver's seat (resetting the god damn pain in the ass position profiles in the process) but left all the labor off the final bill, just charged for the part, afraid to admit their fuckup with words.

found a man who said he'd check the modules and find the problem, charges a lot less than any garage and that's only if he can fix it. so now the tcs module has been replaced & reprogrammed or whatever the fuck and now it might actually work, we'll see tomorrow.

>Best 3 series
E30. The handling is unmatched by other 3 series.
>Best 5 series
E34. Last model with the classic BMW headlights and the last truly reliable BMW.
>Best 7 series
E38

*the 2nd also had some major engine malfunction but idr what exactly, that was 7 years ago :x

needless to say this is the last time he's buying a BMW, unless he suddenly becomes rich and can buy brand new or at least one with a warranty. i don't blame him for wanting them because they're incredibly comfortable and easy cars to drive, which is what you want for highway commuting, but he never spent more than 3k on any of them, so he was asking for trouble really.

oh yeah, between the 3rd and 4th he had an audi a4, volvo v70, vauxhall omega 2.8 and traded each one in for the other, and while he did like the omega THE GEARBOX TURNED INTO A BLENDER, AGAIN. AGAIN.

i'm pretty sure he's car cursed at this point.

damn i loved those. first 5 series to be a wagon, first AWD 5 series and also beat mercedes line up in reliability (which got it a few awards for reliability).

>gunmetal grey

Is it this one?

Fuck, that looks like fucking SEX

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LONGBOI

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yeah man, it was such a perfect example :(

had these wheels on, this picture is kinda poo but they actually worked really well together.

yo an dis is how not to do it, homeboi

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This car with this color does things to my dick

shit looks like some bullshit you would see peyton manning driving during a thursday night football commercial after a holding penalty

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E30 best 3, E38 and E39 are correct

e39 is an unreliable soap bar lad. it was too conservative.

>E39
Why

is that a original color? fucking beauty had a e34 but something went wrong with the timing belt or chain

Factory color Avus Blue as I recall.

Likely belt, the early M20 ones were trash and snapped easy. BMW quickly phased them out and replaced them with M50s that had chains.

its original

Fug I saw one of these today. It was so nice holy shit

Also
>best BMW design
>not E34

E38s look so fucking gangster, for lack of a better word. They're so long and low. It's beautiful.

i can buy a mint condition black E38 with the 4.4 V8, manual gearbox and LSD from an E39 M5 for $6k, should I?

You should, man can never have too much 7 series in his life.

our mechanics can't work on them... the ones that knew how to have retired

Pucker up your asshole and do it yourself, that's what I've been doing. You'll become a master of arcane technology in no time, something like some shitty Volkswagen TSI engine seems so trivial after these beasts.

it's easier if you can read german, and have the wealth of knowledge on the internet through their forums to explain how to work on them

googling in europe might fetch great results, but in burgerland we only get results to yahoo answers or some stupid thing

The Bentley manuals will get you extremely far though in "basic" stuff.
I do admit that they can be a bit of a pain to work on at times, I once had to call some old dude in fucking Japan to figure out my E32's electronics.He wasn't exactly thrilled that I was calling him in the middle of the night.

as a european you should've thought ahead to the time zone differences... that's hilarious though only in europe

i think it was on hyves or possibly yahoo, i was in a dutch chatroom and just posted my phone number for the hell of it and some dutch woman calls me 5 minutes later lecturing me about my horrible views on immigration

If you asked me to draw a car when I was 9 years old it would look something like that

the perfect 4 door design. the end.

implying you weren't drawing dicks when you were 9

It doesn't look like the successor of XJ. I hate that c-pillar. It tells that Pooinloo skipping to paint it.

I like Mitsubishi Galant VIII or Alfa Romeo 159 looks more, but that is just my opinion

I agree

Fucking hell, I was on nofap.
Thank you very much, stupid cunts.

when you read it backwards it's PEMYS :DDD

what exactly were you googling?

Compared to the E38 it looks awfully obese and as if it is wheezing and gasping for air.

came

Just picked this one up for $2500. Clean with 120000 miles.

Stop being a hipster, new BMWs look so much better in every way, shape, and form.

all downhill from there

I prefer the classic XJ design

The new one looks generic and try hard

Is the v12 e38 really as bad as people say?

Should I get the v8 or what?

i wouldn't call this generic honestly
it looks sexy as hell

get the 740

It just looks like a mercedes or a kia to me.

Nothing about that design says Jaguar

Watch out, best XJ design coming through

dis desu
>Nothing about that design says Jaguar
yup.

Would people in the thread recommend the 725tds? I'm Europoor so I wouldn't really want a VEEATE to commute in and I also don't care about going too fast if I'm picking luxury. So is the 725tds a good, reliable pick for a daily. I don't so much care if some of the electronics are broken but there shouldn't be any costly repairs or stuff breaking which kill the whole car.

the 2.5 tds engine is a piece of shit. get the 3.0 diesel or a 728i if you want reliability

My pal has the 2.5tds in his E34 and it atleast has a lot of miles on it and he hasn't had to do much to it.

Is there ethanol pumps in your country? It works on all bmw 7er built after 1988. You can run a 740i for the price of your average shitbox family car.

The e34 525tds are common but they need more maintenance than a m20/m50

There are but the flexifuel conversion costs. And the ethanol isn't really super cheap, it's about 0.90-1€ /litre

This.
I'll go a little further and say that if you want a diesel, take a mercedes w124 300d with auto transmission. Diesel isn't bmw thing from that era.

How are the W210s instead? They generally seem to be cheaper than the W124s nowadays but they don't seem reliable.