They have come down massively in price recently and i think they are starting to bottom out in price.
I work in the motor trade so I bought mine at trade prices so its a cheap play thing to take on the odd track day, nurburgring and something comfy to drive on long trips.
Get them up to 70, stick the cruise control on and they are pretty good on fuel, on a 270mile trip i averaged over 30mpg
Mines a 2000 so i dont pay the silly road tax and mine had a new engine and facelift vanos kit under warranty from BMW back in 2003 so the engine has only done 70k
Put it on the rollers a few weeks ago to check its healthy and pulled these numbers
399.7bhp and 385ft lbs of torque, completely stock
a remap will normally gain you 20hp and about the same in torque, changing manifolds normally gives you the greatest gain, 30bhp+
excuse the passanger headlight, got some water in it but cleaned it out later that day
just making a few changes currently, done a 'square' setup where you put a set of rear wheels on the front to help with handling, with means im running 285 slicks all around.
Fitting a set of coilovers to cover all the extra grip of the slicks
Probably put a decent set of pads in the front for my first track day.
Overall i think they are great cars, they arnt very fast due to them being heavy, i would say under 130mph your about as quick as a stage 1 saff but after that you will have the legs.
Just know that they are pretty decent at whatever you want to do, not amazing but they dont really have anything bad going for them.
I find the exhaust a bit quiet for a V8 but doing a 'muffler delete' makes a difference, sounds alot nicer then, yet leaving the middle resonators in means its silent on cruising with no drone
Here is a clip of mine, its very loud when its cold as it has an airpump that throws extra air through to help with emissions but then stops after about 1minute, if you listen to the last 3 seconds of the clip you can hear the exhaust quieten down as the pump turns off
If you can get a decent one for around £5k i think your laughing
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3yGKow6uIY[/youtube]
If you can get a decent one for around £5k i think your laughing