Help, my poor impulse control caused me to buy a crusty BMW

A Grand Marquis, a Crossfire, a Volvo P1800 older than my mom–all here to race.

When I arrived at this spring’s $2000 Challenge Presented by Tire Rack, I had no idea what to expect from the competitors. While I’m used to seeing a paddock full of 350Zs and Miatas at drift events, I was blown away at the wide array of cars that showed up.

I’ve been driving grassroots drift events for close to 10 years now, and I don’t think I’ve ever driven with anyone that made it to the track without exceeding the $2000 budget. In 2019, for example, I got a great deal on my 350Z for only $1500. Then I spent more than $500 just to replace some bent suspension components. So how on earth are people building race cars with these budget constraints–in 2025 no less?

I was able to speak with a handful of the competitors during this year’s event–officially called the Grassroots Motorsports $2000 Challenge Presented by Tire Rack and Powered by AutoBidMaster–and definitely felt at home with the folks there. Everyone seemed to be having a blast, whether they had breezed through all of their runs worry-free or were rebuilding their front end after hitting the wall during a drag pass.

On the drive home from the $2000 Challenge, I couldn’t think about anything other than finding a car for the next one. I reached out to a few of my friends to see if they would be interested in helping me with the project–without even having a car in mind–and they all said they were on board! Within 24 hours of being back home, I had formed a team to build a $2000 Challenge car. Now came the hard part: finding that car.

I figured the first thing I should do was write out a set of “must-haves” when searching for a worthy $2000 Challenge car. While a front-wheel-drive car may be well suited for the competition, it would be too off-brand for me. I have an irresistible attraction toward drifting, like a moth to a flame. I decided that I would only search for cars that were both manual and rear-wheel drive, but I would consider pretty much anything that checked both of those boxes.

Staying below the $2000 budget was going to be my most difficult hurdle, as I am neither a fabricator nor mechanic, so I can’t just piece together whatever cheap engine and chassis I happen to come across. I would more than likely have to find a complete (or mostly complete) car, buy it for about $1000, and then use the other $1000 to turn it into a race car.

Now that I had laid down my must-haves and formulated a rough idea of how I would spend my money, it was time to start searching for a solid starting point.

After about two days of searching, I came across a 350Z posted for $1500. It was someone’s drift car project that had to be sold because he was moving. It had a lot of good aftermarket parts installed on it, but unfortunately he couldn’t get it to start.

I talked to the seller and told him what we wanted to use the car for, and he agreed to sell it to me for $1000. It’s a chassis I have experience with, it was within the price range I had set, and it had a lot of aftermarket parts that we could sell. Maybe this $2000 Challenge thing isn’t so hard after all.

The next morning, I messaged him to set up a time to pick it up–with no response. Later that day, I got a notification that he had sold the car. I was pretty bummed, but that just meant it was time to continue the search.

A few days later, someone on Facebook tagged me on a 5.0-swapped Volvo wagon that had been attacked by a falling tree. I’ve always liked wagons, and this one had already had some serious money put into it.

Based on the pictures I saw, it was honestly just a new windshield away from being able to drive. I contacted the seller, but he made it very clear that he only wanted to sell the car to someone who would restore it to its former glory, not strip it down and make it into a race car.

It took another two weeks of searching before I came across another suitable car near my price range, a manual BMW E36 sedan. The cons were that it didn’t run–which the seller figured was due to a loose ground somewhere, and the month-old post said, “NEED GONE TODAY.” People often forget to take down ads, so I assumed the car had probably been sold or scrapped by now.

After another week of fruitless searching, I came across that very E36 again–but with the price reduced. So it must still be available, right?

I sent the guy a message, and he immediately responded that he was looking to get rid of the car.

I went to go look at it the next morning, and it was a lot rougher than the listing had led me to believe. I was greeted by rust holes, mismatched paint and a muffler that was scraping the ground. Sometimes people see a rough car and say, “Well, it’s got good bones,” but this car had lived a lot of winters outside in New Hampshire, and those bones were crusty.

Against my better judgement, I talked with him about the $2000 Challenge and the budget that I had to stick to, and he agreed to knock another $500 off and sell it to me for $1000. He dropped off the car a couple days later, which means now it’s time to get to work.

So let me introduce you to my slightly used 1994 BMW 325i. The car was last registered in 2018, the oil change sticker is from 2014, and all four tires were produced during the Bush administration.

When Tom first saw the car, he said, “Austin, we need to talk about impulse control.” I replied that if my wife hasn’t been able to fix that yet, I don’t think that he was going to be able to.

I haven’t picked out a name for the car just yet, but I’m thinking the 325ish–as in, the BMW 325 I Should Have not purchased. If you guys have a better name idea, I am all ears.

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