I guess in the interest of defending BMW's honor I should say I had a 1983 BMW E21 320i as my first car. Pretty much bulletproof, though I ended up driving it into the ground. Started misfiring badly when warm. Think it was the piston rings worn out- they were probably original with 250,000 miles on it (odometer broke). It also needed a valve job at one point to pass smog.
Manual transmission, manual steering, rear wheel drive, it could haul a lot of stuff, just not a$$.
