Just Because: This BMW E21 Has Been Wandering Around Europe This Summer

Photography by Diogo Faustino

We often get incredible submissions that deserve a much wider audience. So meet Diogo Faustino, a BMW E21 driver who just can’t to seem to end his epic summer-of-2016 road trip through Europe. It’s been 4,000 km (2,485 miles) so far and he hasn’t looked back yet…

With the 1982 316 at his command, Faustino began in Portugal in May, and is currently enjoying his car in between spurts of work, with his profession offering a great opportunity to just drive.

“I work as a welder all over and was always thinking, ‘Man, what a road, I wish I had my car here!’. So everything me and my buddy Ted from Bayerische Classic Cars did to the E21 was to transform the 316 into a GT car that would be unsuspicious and period-correct.”

Now with a sleeping bag and routes that heavily lean on exciting B-roads, Faustino uses the car to go where he pleases, “places like Col de Turini, Monaco Historic GP, Italian coast and Alps, the beautiful roads in Switzerland and the Rhône-Alps region,” he says. “I love travelling with an old car because sometimes when I arrive from a restaurant, for example, I have some people around it and already got invited to two classic cars meetings, one in Arlanc, France, and the other one last weekend in Sion, Switzerland.”

Things break, of course, but even broken rocker arms, patchy electrical gremlins, and shoddy wipers haven’t been enough to keep him from the journey. “I love finding tiny pieces of forgotten roads that don’t go anywhere and aren’t marked in Jalopnik or featured in old Top Gear and give me a chance to really, I mean really enjoy the M20 and the skinny tyres and the unassisted steering that takes a pounding on my body.”

“I love passing in villages that look like they stopped in time and feel myself just slowing down as well. I’m the kind of guy that always takes the longer route and having my car with me means that that awful part of any road trip (the end) doesn’t have to come anytime soon,” he says.

You can follow his journey on Instagram, and online at his website.