Which Classic Car Gets On Your Nerves?

When I hear, “My dream car is an E30 M3 ,” my eyes glaze over. Complete silence. Distant white noise slowly builds until all I hear is an ear-piercing ring. I mentally drown out the speaker’s ramblings on how the flamboyant Motorsport-fiddled entry level BMW won the World Touring Car Championship (once, in 1987, by asingle point). It also won two European Touring Car Championship titles and…zzz… Yes, I get it. It’s “God’s Chariot” and you believe there’s yet to be a greater automotive achievement. Here’s the thing: you can’t argue with E30 M3 fanatics. They’ve made up their mind: it’s a flawless piece of German engineering. Though, one man thinks he can improve it , but I think BMW already did: it’s called the E36 M3.





To me, the E30 M3 is the German equivalent to the R32, 3, 4 Skyline GT-R. So universally loved and praised I’ve become not only numb to its existence but also genuinely irked when it comes up in conversation. Yes, I’ve heard it a few thousand times now, care to chat aboutany other car ? I’d honestly rather listen to someone eulogize the Studebaker Avanti orZagato Zele .

I know: the first M3is special. Folks who have far more right to praise it than I do condemn it have declared the E30 M3 as one of the greatest driving cars of all time . Here’s the catch: I’ve tried to appreciate the E30 M3 and from a mechanical significance perspective, it certainly gets my horsepower-per-liter nod of approval—but that’s about all the love I’ve got for the box-flared legend. I tried to jump aboard, but there’s just no room left on that bandwagon.

Funny enough, BMW is one of my favorite automobile manufacturers, making my disdain for the early M3 an unusual disliking. What classic car irrationally annoys you? Is there a commonly coveted classic that gets on your nerves?





^{Photography by Stephen Heraldo, Joshua Rizo, and Sudhir Vijaykumar}