Arctic Camo F80 M3 - Build Thread

[gabriel.psd]

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Hello everyone,

My car went through a few changes recently and I decided it was time to make a thread about it.

Some of you may remember me from last summer. I spent a few months in Paris for school and offered my photographic services to members of the forum to meet up and do some shoots while I was traveling through Europe. A member named Mark took me up on the offer and I had the privilege of shooting his car and also his proposal to his at-the-time girlfriend, and current fiancé. Mark also let me drive his M4, which was absolutely tormenting and it stuck with me. I knew eventually in life I would need one.

I had previously tried to purchase a few M3's before. Right when I was getting my license, I tried to buy a Dinan supercharged E36 M3. Techno Violet on Modena. Absolutely awesome car. Parents were fully convinced I would murder myself in it, so that didn't happen. Fast forward a couple of years, I tried to get an E46 M3. Super high mileage, pre-facelift, everything horrible that you can imagine. Saner heads prevailed, and I dodged that mistake. A couple of years later, a ZCP Interlagos on cloth E46, no options, manual, 60k mile beauty shows up and I was ready. Turns out car had been wrecked before, so that was a "No" as well. Then came my absolute and unconditional love for the E90 M3. A friend of mine wanted to sell his. Alpine White on Imola, manual, LCI. Pretty much everything I really cared about, minus the interior. I had always been a huge fan of the cloth interior options on the M3's. But it was just not happening for me.

Fast forward a couple of months after my return from Europe last year, I finish with school, sacked up and ordered what I thought would be a really awesome car. F80 M3, Mineral Gray on Cloth, 6 Speed Manual, no options. I was in utter shock and couldn't believe that I had finally done it. And then the waiting game began. I had done a lot of thinking about what color to get the car. Had made countless renders of different colors and wheels. I had seen a lot of Alpine White M3's being delivered, so the less common Mineral Gray seemed like a good choice, although it was not my first. Then we kept checking on my car to start being made and it wasn't happening. My order sat in place without going into production for over two months, and nobody knew what was going to happen. The carbon roof shortage was affecting my order heavily.

Then the call came in. "There's an F80 here, Alpine White on Cloth, Manual. You have first dibs."

I got the call from my sales guy at BMW of El Cajon, Nick Owen, and he was telling me that they had just gotten that car delivered to them on a sale where the buyer was no longer interested. I dropped what I was doing and drove there immediately. A couple of hours later, I had my actual dream car.







That very same day we did a dyno run, and I installed the Status Gruppe 1x1 CF diffuser and the low-rise 1x1 CF trunk lip:







By the end of my second day of owning the car, it was time to call BMW for my 1,200 mile service.



As soon as that was taken care of, it was time to make sure the paint on my M3 was being maintained and protected for the year. Elite Finish Detail did an incredible job of applying C Quartz to my car. Since then, the paint has been incredibly smooth and absolutely perfect. No swirls, no marks, no visible orange peel. Not the mention the best part, it takes barely 5 minutes to clean the whole cars with the waterless wash system that they have. Highly recommend them if you are in SoCal.




Within a couple of weeks, I had already ordered my HRE’s and my KW’s, after many many renders. The wheels arrived in a week or so of ordering, which blew my mind.

HRE 303M in 19x9.5 and 19x10.5. I opted for a custom 1 of 1 color and couldn’t be happier with it. They are an absolute nightmare to keep clean, but when they are, I can’t look away from them.



When the wheels arrived, the KW HAS kit was already sitting ready to be installed. While that was happening, I had the grills and gills painted gloss black. I decided to throw in some color matching with wheels on the driver side kidney grill.

Immediately after install:


A couple of days later at a quick shoot.







After a bit, I toyed with the idea of getting a set of Öhlins TTX on the car. I left the country for a few weeks and came back to basically the best handling M3 on the road (and possibly on the track).

Absolutely fell in love with the kit and couldn’t be any happier. The quality of the kit is beyond words. The kit is well documented here: http://f80.bimmerpost.com/forums/sho....php?t=1129675

When I ordered the car, I ordered some personalized license plates. They had arrived at the DMV, but I never got around to picking them up. Finally had some time and was pretty stoked on it:



From there, I was pretty much done with modding it, aside from waiting for the Status Gruppe front lip to begin arriving. Once it did, I was incredibly happy with the car and just enjoyed it for a few months. Went on multiple road trips and fun adventures. In this time, I went through all the options for lips from Status Gruppe. The initial prototype was on my car, the first Carbon Fiber one, and the first FRP.

























I was officially done. Wanted to do nothing but enjoy my absolute favorite M3, and be happy.
Then the goddamn LCI arrived. Ugh, bastards.

I had to do it:



Couldn’t think of anyone else to help out with this project other than Alex at Alpine. His harness was absolutely the easiest choice. Plug and play. He got on his computer and gave me a ton of cool options. Coded the car and was happy. Deleted the amber side markers in the headlights, among other things.



I was officially done. Again.

Then… I began toying with the idea of doing something a little fun. My car was white and clean and very classy looking. I loved it very much, but it just didn’t seem dramatic enough. I wanted something fun for a bit and began doing renders.



Finally settled on a look that I loved and we began to lay down the vinyl. Went to the best in San Diego, and one of the best in California, SD Wrap. The work began:









The design is homage to the RS6 DTM Wagon built for Jon Olsson.

I couldn’t be happier with it.

This is the current look of the car:





I know the look isn’t for everyone, but it’s definitely for me. For now I’ll keep it and enjoy it. I’m sure the car will change soon, and I’ll update this thread when it does.

[AutoTalent]

Congrats! Looks amazing. The finish on your HREs looks very similar to Battleship Grey which is one of my personal favorites.

[qspring]

Enjoyed the photos! I think you certainly accomplished your design objective with the wrap. The car stands out from every other white m3.

[FUTURE]

Amazing man, amazing! Have you thought of adding some tire stickers in white? I think that will totally complete this build.

[x.shell]

Love this car.

[gabriel.psd]

Originally Posted by AutoTalent

Congrats! Looks amazing. The finish on your HREs looks very similar to Battleship Grey which is one of my personal favorites.

Originally Posted by qspring

Enjoyed the photos! I think you certainly accomplished your design objective with the wrap. The car stands out from every other white m3.

Originally Posted by FUTURE

Amazing man, amazing! Have you thought of adding some tire stickers in white? I think that will totally complete this build.

Originally Posted by exo

Love this car.

Thanks everyone!!!

Originally Posted by FUTURE

Amazing man, amazing! Have you thought of adding some tire stickers in white? I think that will totally complete this build.

I actually ran the white Michelin lettering for quite some time:



Maybe it will come back haha

[revolutioN99]

Nice build man! Really like the car!

[chris s]

I gotta say, I don't hate it... Well done. Def not for me but pretty cool!!

[dkhm3]

Wow !!

[John Tanglewood]

Those look SOOOO similar to my battleship grey HREs!!



I eventually repainted mine to brushed tinted clear, but yours with the wrap goes really well!

[BwoodBMW]

I love it... Looks awesome

[///bproden]

Looks great! Nice work!

[Boeing Driver]

Reminds me of the cow vipers...

[Colinv6]

When I read camo wrap I was really ready to hate on this......



....but it looks amazing! Everything just works as a package together!

[catch]

looks AWESOME!!! great vision and great look

[Clikx]

Love the wrapping!!!! WOW

[AnujS2K]

Love the pics!

[DD335i]

Soooo nice.

[Ragged Edge]

Wow!!! Really love this car!!

[Lalit@autocouture]

TTX

[mike@x-ph.com]

Amazing ride !!

[gabriel.psd]

Thank you everyone for the kind words!!! Really appreciate it.