Greetings, MLE?

[Mamporo]

Hi guys

I'm Mampuru from Limpopo, Phokoane, a rural village in the Sekhukhune area, and working in Evander Mpumalanga.

I move around in an emerald green metallic 81 528i since 2013, in manual OD and 3:45 LSD diff, it gives me joy and led me to keep searching for more, I bought a lot of spare parts along the way and a month ago while doing my daily searches on the net came across an ad with the title : 1977 530 M3 on junk mail, I then became curious when I saw the attached pics, I called immediately, the car was advertised in Pretoria, I was in Evander and it was around 17h40, the following day drove straight to Pretoria, arrived there and to my surprise I was welcomed by a raised bonnet, one chrome mirror, Mahle special rims, no petrol cap towards the rear end, rounded the car there's the cap, small rear lights, Scheel seats inside, dogleg pattern on the knob, no cracks on the dash, opened the hood boom! Big air filter for the twin Zenith, checked the vin to confirm what I was seeing, and immediately put down a deposit, returned the following day and towed it to a place of safety.

I bought what appears to be no: 197 MLE .

platinum silver in color, second batch of 108 cars, short of the steering wheel, front bumper, oil cooler and the plastic wheel arches but (sourced three arches and a set of scheel seats in a much better condition, and a mechanical petrol pump some time back). So the car just came right in time with these parts in storage.

It has a Dogleg, Mahle 14's, Scheel seats, LSD diff I believe, no (a/c, power steering, and elec windows), dual zenith carbs, original engine and cylinder head I think-it has the 76 cast on it.
Rear fibre spoiler.
Rust shows on the left hand side front and rear doors, no rust on chase or under car. One tiny crack on the dash size of a 10 cents coin.

Flushed the cooling system, ran the engine after unblocking the jets, just wanted to check if the speedo is working because it has 122,----km's on the clock, so I rounded a block and to my surprise the speedo is working and the engine ran fine considering that the last time it ran was some 19 years ago as I was told, put the rear wheels up to confirm the LSD and it passed.

One odd thing is the car has a glass sunroof, but a BMW glass roof in 76? It appears to be an after market, and it does not have the drilled wholes on the body or on paddles, I have only seen white MLEs even though it is documented that the first batch of 110 cars were all ice white, and the second 108 came in platinum silver and saphire blue.

here are some pics

Will get proper pics in few days to come, sell a kidney and restore.

 

[JaunRothner]

:coolShake:

Enjoy!

 

[prado]

whooah! This is unbelievable! raise:

We have got to see more pics! :=):

An MLE! The pics definitely looks like an MLE except for the missing stripes! Man, it even has mud flaps! And, a set of windshields!

This is totally unbelievable! I would give both my E34 and E39 to have that car! Amazing find!

The Holy Grail of E12 BMWs! Hell, the Holy Grail of any car enthusiast!

PLEASE tell us more! Show us some more!

AND, get that rare jewel restored by the BEST! An MLE! Just when I thought they would never ever show up again, here is one that survived after almost 40 years!

raise:raise:raise:raise:raise:raise:raise:

 

[Bernard///M3]

Nice, have you got more pics of the whole car?

Speak to Luis Malhou, he has a 530 MLE that his father bought new and managed to track it down years later bought it and restored it.

Here is a pic of his car

 

[Wes]

Welcome to the forum bru.

Nice find, it just goes to show that there are still great cars out there waiting to be found and rescued.

As stated above, there are a couple of guys who are very clued up on MLEs and what it takes to restore them. Reach out, even if it is to just swop stories.

Best of luck with the restoration.

 

[prado]

I had to search junkmail and see for myself! I am in tears right now! The car was for sale 5 minutes from where I live! I am certain this is the same car!

The front spoiler is wrong though! And it was advertised as a 520 M3!

:blueCry::blueCry::blueCry:

 

[Bernard///M3]

We need Luis here, he knows these cars inside out.

I've been comparing pics, the motor looks the same, but the badges on the Rims and steering wheel are different, and as Prado mentioned the bumper looks different!

So let's see what Luis says

 

[Mamporo]

Thank you guys, Prado yes that's the same car, in fact the car is still in Pretoria, only took few pics of it last month, but will surely get more pics in the coming week. yes the ad was misleading and the front spoiler is wrong and damaged.

@Bernard I have been admiring Luis's MLE whenever I got a chance of seeing it and I believed that there's one for me hiding somewhere.

@Wes that's true, thank you guys and I appreciate your warm welcome

Will most definitely post proper pics as soon as I get them.

 

[dvst8]

Damn Dude, thats better than winning the lotto !


raise:

 

[ChefDJ]

In awe raise:

 

[Philip Foglar]

Rare as hen's teeth! Well done on spotting this and buying it! :clapper:

 

[rodga]

Awesome find man!
Hopefully you can restore this one too, will be epic to see next to Luis white one.

Sent from my SM-N900 using Tapatalk

 

[MikeR]

:clapper::clapper: good luck with the restoration.

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:clapper::clapper: good luck with the restoration.

 

[Budleigh]

That's fantastic! What a great find.

 

[444YYY]

Well done, nice find.
I can see this was your destiny! Best of luck with the project.
Being advertised as a 520 M3, the owner didn't know what he had, so I presume the price was a bargain?

 

[Luis Malhou]

Hey Guys

Nice find Mamporo, let me give you some history.

Your car if Chassis number is correct, would be something like 770197 stamped on the shock tower and your Engine number should be 4581259

Your car would have been of the second vin set or second batch built and was probably sold in oct or november of 1976, No 196 was sold in Sept and no 198 was sold in Nov of 1976.

Platinum Silver and Blue cloth interior, no extras having been specified by the customer.

What makes these different from the first batch? The first batch were all handbuilt and lightened and were all the same, allowing for some variances due to parts not being available at production time. BMW wanted to race in the Production series with something a little diffrent from the 528i available at the time. BMW Germany together with their first full collaboration with AC Schnitzer built one car in Germany and flew it to SA. A copy was made, the cars tested and the green light given. BMW (Then AG SA) had to have 100 cars sold to the public before entry into the racing series. This didnt leave them much time too tool up for production and still make a genuinely different car. So 528 chassis were put on the production line, 105 in total, all were handbuilt, painted in white, hand drilled for lightness and so forth. Engines were tweaked with lighter flywheels, different cams and so forth. No elec windows, AC, PS and the like.Due to time constrains to get these cars built and sold were the 'MLE' items ran out, std items were incorporated, thus we see some with std gearknobs and others with the dogleg pattern, no 2 cars are alike. The side wheel spats were hand made, drilled and hand fitted. MANY OF THE ORIGINAL CARS HAVENT SURVIVED, due to a number of reasons, privateers raced them, they were wild on corners and some didnt make it having been driven by road warriors, accidents and the like. Most of the cars I found and purchased were scrapped. Also using thinner gauge steel from Brazil that was shipped untreated or electro plated caused many to rust, especially in coastal areas, a problem across the BMW range in the early years.

The cars proved so popular that a further batch were built, however due to the cost of handbuilding ( a new MLE in 1975/6 sold for R10995!!) the second batches were production based and allowed for different colours, interiors and luxuries that the normal customer wanted. There came the different colours, interiors, AC, PS, EW and so on. The engines were more standard, the cars were not lightened and were not offered standard with and of the M items, steering wheels, spoilers, stripes and so on. All too make them cheaper and easier and quicker to build along the other 5 series models.
The sunroof is definitely not a factory fitted option, sunroofs were all steel slide roofs and were not found on the first batch as it weakened the bodies roof.

The first rims were all MAHLE magnesium light alloy rims (looks like yours has these first rims from your pics), these are the spider patter with a slight dome effect, although they were found in some of the second batches, the later rims still being MAHLE with BBS markings had the same pattern with the flat face. Steering wheels were std BMW 4 spoke wheels with the cars not having any M motifs on the wheel caps, nor stripping or spoiler kits, side wheel arches etc. Although these could be speced when ordering or buying a car from the catalogue of the time.

The second and third batches are not the sought after ones, there are still many around, I know of around 5 in my area. However still a nice piece of history and a nice find. Clean her up, restore her well and you have something different. Values vary, however a nice clean complete car is probably in the same value as the 535
around R100k, so still valuable.
The spoiler kit is the later version a BBS kit fitted to the 535 which replaced the 530 late 70's early 80's.

Dont add the spats not change anything trying to make it look like the first versions, it will detract and devalue the car. Keep it as it was when purchased.

Take some more pics of the rear , bonnet and so on and enjoy the history.

:clapper:

 

[444YYY]

What a wealth of knowledge!

 

[wikked]

Awesome find. Can't wait to see you restore it.

 

[Mamporo]

Hi guys,

Thank you, I appreciate your valuable inputs and constructive comments.

Learned a lot about these cars, most of the knowledge of course from our mobile library Luis, and old articles from Car magazine downloaded from the e12.de website, a lot of rare information is documented daarso.

South African 530 models, all carbureted:

1. 530 MLE, vin ranges from 770000 - 770217, body with rear petrol cap and small tail lights.
With the first 110 cars in ice white, then the second 108 in platinum and sapphire blue, all MLEs.

2. 530, this model had the face lifted body and came with all the luxuries( a/c, e/w, p/s, and electric mirrors) and used a single 4 barrel solex carburetor and a 4 speed manual transmission, Scheel seats, BBS Mahle rims, and a 3:45 LSD diff.

3. 530, same as the second one but fitted with seats that bear the Motorsport stripes and all the chrome trimmings were blacked out.

---

Hi Luis

Wealth of knowledge well shared indeed,dankie.
Yebo that's the correct engine number.

Does that make chassis 770197 the second batch of 108 cars? since the first batch of 110 from the 217 MLEs were all ice white, and the last 108 in platinum and sapphire blue.

When talking about the not sought after ones ( second and third batch 530's) are you referring to the 530 of 1977-1980 facelift with the 4 barrel solex carb,4 speed manual, equipped with a/c, p/s and e/w?

Few pics I begged my sister to take on late Saturday.

 

[JadielM]

Great find, bud. Welcome