Anthony: 1998 BMW E36 328i.
The story of heirloom. automobilia began here: the project that sparked #fuelledbyobsession.
Intro.
Usually when I write an article it’s from the third-person perspective, however this time the story is my own, so I suppose this autobiography of sorts shall be written in the first-person as I take you through the journey of building my 1998 BMW E36 328i; keeping a classic car on the road and living by HEIRLOOM’s slogan: "#fuelledbyobsession.
Firstly, hello!
My name is Anthony and I run HEIRLOOM. Automobilia, an online platform dedicated to telling stories behind the art of automotive preservation. I started HEIRLOOM. Automobilia to give other automotive CUSTODIANS. (as I call them) a platform to share their unique story and journey with their automobiles. It has since grown to telling stories about preservation in all forms with cars serving as the medium in which these stories are explored.
The story of Gunther, my 1998 BMW 328i E36 was intended to serve as a proof of concept for my idea of the CUSTODIANS. series, filmed in March of 2026 and as I’m writing this now it’s almost October. That’s something about me, I’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to things and the video sat at 80% completion for months as I felt it wasn’t ready to be shared with the world and I definitely didn’t want to deliver anything that was half-baked… except for this article it seems…
In the busyness of coordinating a launch, I haven’t had much time to sit with my words. So for the meantime, enough the video and some pictures.
Not a car guy.
Something I’ve always said is “I’m not a car guy.” Which is a bit ironic as I run this page, which on the surface is about cars (it’s actually more than that, but we’ll just go with that for now). To my friends and family, I am that car guy. But when I go out and meet other car enthusiasts, imposter syndrome quickly sets in and I realise how out of depth in these interactions. Car guys by my definition are the ones who can tell you exactly what engine a car has just from a drive-by lasting seconds. They can get down to details when it comes to engines, wheels, and specifications.
I can’t do any of those things. Hence why I don’t consider myself a car guy. Sure I can appreciate a nice car, I was into the Fast & Furious movies and playing Need for Speed games growing up and my favourite car was a Nissan 350Z. But a ‘car guy’ that isn’t me (or maybe it is)…
If I had to define me, it would be: “I’m just someone who enjoys diving deep into a hobby and taking care of his things.”
I just happened to have landed an E36 one day, became obsessed with the platform and then the perfectionist hobbyist side of me took over.
All the car guys I know and see online have owned over 20 cars by the age of 30, and here I am at 29 owning my fourth car ever.
The love of tinkering.
I don’t know where my love of tinkering came from. As a kid, I always enjoyed taking things apart and putting them back together (sometimes they didn’t work when they got back together). Perhaps I was influenced by the people in my life. I can remember when I was about 10 years old (2007), modifiying altoids tins were a thing and he made a guitar amp. I’ve always enjoyed movies where ‘tech’ was involved, the spy movies where the spy would ‘hack into the mainframe’. In 2008, Iron Man came out and I think that movie alone single handedly spark a wave of engineers (not me though). That film definitely left an impression on a young me and I remember.
PC building
Iron man.
Nerf guns.
The Art of Preservation.
Growing up in the early 2010s, technology was advancing at a rapid rate. Apple was releasing a new iPod every year, and unlike today where each phone looks exactly the same and the upgrade is minor. Every yearly update in those days were major. Obviously as a teenager, I couldn’t afford to upgrade to the next thing year after year, and even back then I knew that an iPod, besides a design change did the same thing. Something I started to do to ‘trick’ myself into enjoying what I had was to take care of my devices and then watch the Apple Keynote about my iPod whenever I felt it was getting stale, and by magic my old iPod, felt brand new again!
I’ve always been sentimaenal, that’s just who I am. Objects mean a lot to me, and it’s a sense of pride to preserve the things I own.
Sinatra.
Sinatra was my first E36 and my third car ever.
A quick summary of my car ownership:
18 years old - 2007 Mazda 3 SP23 ‘AURORA’
19 years old - 2007 Mazda 3 SP23 ‘LAZARUS’ (Aurora got written off and I found myself getting back into the exact same car).
23 years old - 1996 BMW 323i E36 Sedan ‘SINATRA’
27 years old - 1998 BMW 328i E36 Cabriolet ‘GUTHER’
29 years old - 2002 BMW X5 E53 ‘TITAN’
My journey into BMW started with Sinatra a black 323i sedan. Aptly named during the maiden drive home from Sydney with my fiancee, going through a new decade of music every hour. We got to the 60s, Frank Sinatra was playing on the old speakers and I thought ‘Sinatra’ was a fitting name for the vision I had for this car; classy, black-tie sedan. Owning my first vintage BMW, gave me lots to do from a preventative maintenance perspective and thus I learnt a lot about car mechanics. With every hobby I have the pleasure of delving into, I take it a bit too seriously. The reason I bring Sinatra up is because without him, there would be no Gunther. Sinatra was the trail blazer that sparked my love for BMW and my obsession for turning wrenches.
The more car content I consumed, the more I convinced myself that for a car to be sporty, it needed to have two-doors and just like that I fell out of love with Sinatra, and I was on a passive hunt for a coupe.
Gunther.
I found Gunther while scrolling through Facebook one morning - I thought the colour was cool, it was a 328i and it was a convertible with a hardtop. So I set up a time to go see the car, going after work one evening. As it goes with marketplace finds, it looked a lot better in the pictures; in person he was rough and my dream for potentially owning a cool convertible quickly diminished. Mismatched panels, non-runner and the nail in my coffin: a hole cut out of the main carpet. I sat with the car for maybe an hour and I told Jack (seller) that I would think about it, as the undertaking for the project was going to be bigger than I had originally envisioned. I laugh when I think about it now, but from the Facebook photos I thought it was going to be wheels, coils, a detail and I BAM - a show car! Boy was I wrong.
24 hours later, and the car’s getting loaded onto a trailer. How did we get here you’re probably asking. Well, I was in the gym the next morning doing a bench press, and the bar I was using was painted green; the car’s colour is called Orinoco Green and by the grace of God I thought it was a sign from the universe, so I messaged Jack and told him I’d take it. Turns out there was a lot of interest for the car, as Jack and I are chatting away he tells me that out of everyone that’s come to look at the car, I was the only one who he felt was genuinely interested in restoring the car, everyone else was interested in parting out the hard-top.
I paid $8000 for the car, some might argue that’s a lot for a non-running, automatic 328i E36. By some enthusiasts’ logic, it should be a <$2000 car. Dive a little deeper and I think you’ll realise that I got a decent car for a good price. It’s a rare individual colour option, 328i (highest option before an M3), factory hardtop, factory M-sport aero kit and I also get a car on top of this, so I think $8000 was a steal for this unicorn of a car.
In hindsight it’s probably been the best $8000 I’ve ever spent. It’s taught me A LOT, I’ve gotten to meet some GREAT people, and because of this car I founded HEIRLOOM. and the reason you are reading these words today.
Because of this car I am writing these words today.
sometimes its worth spending the
ROI
hobbies are never a waste of moeny.
Restoration.
Originally the plan of attack was: interior → exterior → mechanical. The logic behind this was to get the interior done, so that one-third of the project is done, motivating me to finish the remaining two. Then I would paint the car, so that it looks good, thus motivating me to finish the final mechanical stage. I laugh when I think about it now, I mean it was a good idea but I’m glad it didn’t go as originally planned.
Interior.
My favourite part of any car is the interior, as that is the area a driver interacts with the most. A neat and tidy interior is a must for me. Gunther’s interior was rough, so the first thing to do was tear it all out, deep clean everything, replacing anything that was overly worn/broken and put it all back together. This took me about a month on-and-off. The E36 has a relatively simple interior, maybe a bit too simple with the amount of things that can break just by looking at it wrong. I went through two interior carpets: the first one was from a coupe as I had originally thought that coupes and convertibles shared the same front-end design, but now I know that they don’t. I spent far too much time trying to make the coupe carpet fit, which involved a lot of shaving foam and doing a half-cut. Honestly, I was prepared to live with the outcome, but then by some miracle, two convertibles appeared at the wreckers (RIP Imlachs), and I managed to get a black carpet to suit a convertible. Once the carpet was in, everything went back in and we moved onto phase two of the project.
Mechanical.
Ahh yes, mechanical is phase two. Here’s how that happened: I figured I was going to paint the car myself, so I started to sand the bonnet only to realise how shit of a job I did, and that I would have to do it to the entire car. I quickly surrendered, realised I was out of my depth and I decided to tackle tasks that were a bit more binary.
My trick to finishing projects is to take the small wins, as that is what builds momentum. If you run before you walk, you might fall and never get back up (put that on a t-shirt). I started off with jobs I had already done before and then went onto the next ‘while you’re there task’. I’m a very impatient person, I want things done then and there which is both a strength and a weakness: pros are that I am motivated to finish the job as soon as possible, the con is that when I reach the end of my patience my level of care starts to diminish and things can start to break. Thankfully this was a semi-permanent jack stand project and I was in no hurry to get it done (kind of).
The list of mechanical work undertaken:
Cooling system overhaul.
Engine gaskets and mounts.
Manual swap.
Front control arms and bushings.
Rear subframe bushings.
Brake rotors and pads.
Clean, clean and more cleaning.
Each job has it’s own story to go along with it, but we don’t have all the words.
Exterior.
By exterior, I just mean paint. My assessment of the car’s paintwork was in a 70% condition. Most of the panels were ok, a detail would’ve brought it up nicely, however it definitely snowballed and quickly became a “do it once, do it right job.” If I had painted only the panels that needed to be painted the final finish would’ve been inconsistent and then I would’ve elected to paint everything anyway which would’ve cost more than to simply do the entire car at once. I brought my car to Braeside Bodyworks in Melbourne’s South-East, John the owner allowed me to work on the car and do what I can (which was to disassemble and reassemble). All the body work and painting was left to the professionals. Seeing a fresh coat of Orinoco green was chefs kiss and really tied the entire project together as it was last major milestone of the project.
Modifications.
The premise behind this build was OEM+. It was to keep things simple and tasteful. I was never chasing big horse power this car, rather it was intended to be a cool cruiser that would also be fun on the occasional spirited drive.
Here are a list of modifications:
BC BR Coilovers.
MaXpeeding rods rear camber arms.
BMW Style 32 Wheels.
MOMO Prototipo steering wheel with quick release.
BM Speedshop short shifter and DSSR.
Kenwood Radio and speakers.
M50 Manifold Swap.
K&N Intake.
Simple, and reversible modifcations that can allow the car to be taken back to stock if needed.
HEIRLOOM.
I enjoy the lifestyle surroudning automtoive culture.
Future.
More words to come. soon. These words are still rough.
Anthony 27.09.2026 8:15am.
