Having seen a few ambitious build threads start but never finish I was a bit reluctant to start one for this project until it was done. Now that the S65 is in and the car has had a couple of successful test drives it's probably safe to put this up...
This story really starts with my previous toy, an S50B32 powered, stripped out E30 coupe. No A/C or power steering, light flywheel, deep fixed buckets etc, etc... It was a project that got a bit out of hand and ended up too aggressive (and not much fun) for street use.
It got me wondering what my perfect street friendly trackday toy would be. I nearly bought a Cayman GT4 but balked at paying over $200k for something that wouldn't be insured at the track. Then I saw Marco Svizzero's V8 1M build on 1addicts and had my answer- a DCT S65 '1M'.
I knew I would at least be doing the 1M widebody if not the S65 (at that stage Marco's S65 conversion cost around $100k) so started looking for a damaged car. A few months later the perfect car turned up- a 2013, Alpine White DCT 135i with some minor front end damage.
The project nearly ended before it even began when I forgot about daylight saving in Vic and missed the auction. Luckily when I called up to see what it sold for I found out the buyer hadn't come through with the deposit and it was mine for the winning bid amount.
Soon I had a scruffy looking and very dirty 135i parked across my driveway with a dead (not just flat) battery and no way into the boot... After working out how to get the DCT out of Park and some surgery to get at the rear seat release cable it was in the garage and underway...
The first stage was to repair it to drive-able condition and make sure there were no major issues before starting the further stages. This wasted a few dollars on parts I ended up replacing with 1M parts anyway but made me more confident before ordering a few thousand dollars worth of new bodywork...
Airbag & dash cover replacement was the most daunting task!
Once that was done a few new front end parts had it back in shape.
Next installment- 1M bodywork.