CzesławAirSuspension air-ride 1980 BMW 318 E21

Fine attention to detail, incredible levels of patience and a determination to make his E21 as perfect as possible means that this much-loved BMWis one of the nicest examples of its kind in Eastern Europe.

Words and photos: Robb Prit

Third Time’s a Charm

It took the owner of this stunning air-ride E21 three goes to find his perfect classic 3 Series, but it was absolutely worth the effort.

By the age of 24, Piotr Grzejdziak already had two BMW E21s in his garage. The first was an accident-damaged car he bought cheaply, but once he had it in the garage, he found that it was too heavily crumpled for a normal repair. Listening to his friends’ advice, he decided the most effective way of restoring it would be to graft on a straight rear section from a second car.

He bought another, but while stripping this one down, he discovered that at some point in the car’s history, the roof had been very poorly repaired, which ruled it out as a suitable base for his project. Disheartened, almost out of money before he’d even begun, Piotr was ready to give it all up, even though he had already bought all the suspension and wheels.

The hardest things to find were the beige seats which took two years to come across, and he had to go to Germany for them. But at only €200 for the pair, he knew he’d got himself a real bargain!

Until that was, he was idly searching through some classic car-selling websites and came across a perfect example a little further from home. With their plentiful potholes and generous winter salting, not many classic cars survive the rigours of decades of Polish roads. California has a well-deserved reputation for being a kind climate for classics, and so is a popular place to export from; for Polish heritage hunters, Italy offers a similarly warm and salt-free environment. It was here that Piotr found a 1980 E21 318 so perfect he booked a one-way flight straight away. “It was factory brown, just what I wanted, and its interior had the rarest upholstery. It also had tilt rear side windows, which are very rare and very expensive, so I immediately knew I had to buy it,” he enthuses.

The only problem was that with his money tied up in the other useless E21 shells, he couldn’t afford it. In an act of generosity that he is still grateful for, his girlfriend lent him half of the amount. Unfortunately, he knew his parents wouldn’t be so supportive of his latest questionable financial decision, so instead of explaining that his packed suitcase was for a trip to Italy, he thought it would be better to tell them he was going to help renovate his girlfriend’s house for a few days.

Once I got home and began installing the new pieces, every next part made me proud and excited. The car started to look beautiful, and slowly I could see it was getting ready

Car bought, his new E21 made it from Milan back to Piotr’s home town of Lodz in eastern Poland without issue… but it was kept in Piotr’s girlfriend’s garage for three months while he waited for the right moment to come clean to his parents. Despite Italy being the land of Lancias, Fiats and Ferraris, the elderly former owner had obviously looked after his German car well, and while at almost 40 years old it was perhaps a little tired, it didn’t need a full restoration. There’s a thriving classic car culture in Lodz, some 60 miles south of Warsaw, though, and used to seeing his friends’ superb builds, Piotr was adamant he was going to have something he could be proud of. And so began what would become a painstaking, three-year nut and bolt rebuild to bring it to better-than-new condition.

Once he’d sold the other shells and had space in the garage again, he drove his new car back home. To say his father was slightly less than happy would be an understatement, but one thing that couldn’t be faulted was Piotr’s dedication, as to get it ready for sandblasting, he got up at 5am every day to spend a couple of hours working on it before going to his day job. Piotr wanted it in the original BMW Sepia brown as he thinks it’s a colour that really suits the car. The first coat came back too light, though, so they added a little black to the mixture, and now it’s perfect. When he brought it back to the garage, it already had the windows put back in with all-new rubber, and the chrome trim was done. When his father saw both how much effort Piotr had put into it and what a beautiful car it would become, his initial reservations crumbled, and he decided to support his son with the build. In the end, he was more than happy to have something to keep his hands busy with after his recent retirement.

Together the two of them worked on the engine for four months, refurbishing all the ancillaries. Anything that seemed a little too worn was replaced, with all the bolts anodised, but as Piotr wasn’t looking for a significant power upgrade, all the internals remain standard. It sounds seriously tuned, though, and this is because Piotr didn’t just make a simple restoration.

Purists might not be too impressed, but the exhaust is a bespoke straight-through system made by a local fabricating master Czarek from Kustom Movement. The rainbow-coloured exhaust manifolds look like a work of art, and the throaty rasp harks right back to the competition cars of the 1970s. One thing Piotr learned over the long months of the project is that finding some rare E21 parts to restore a car like this to such a standard is a project in itself. If he’d wanted a more popular car, such as an E30, for example, there would be plenty of websites and online auctions for everything he needed. At times it felt that he spent as much time trawling the internet looking for the required pieces as working on the car itself.

The key was meeting another classic BMW lover online. From long years of collecting, he had a whole attic full of spare and very hard-to-find parts like original BMW bonnet soundproofing that Piotr couldn’t find anywhere.

“I had the impression that the guy sold me some things out of sympathy. He didn’t want to sell them at all, but he liked the project and wanted to help me complete it, even if it meant he’d have to do without some parts he was saving for his own amazing builds,” he smiles.

Purchases here included an almost new chrome front bumper, which cost €650, and the new-old- stock rear BMW badge he was only allowed to buy for €350 once he’d already spent over €1000 on other pieces. With a €3000 shopping bill, the guy wasn’t that sympathetic, but Piotr had budgeted for things like this though, and the price was well worth it. “Once I got home and began installing the new pieces, every next part made me proud and excited. The car started to look beautiful, and slowly I could see it was getting ready,” he grins.

The hardest things to find were the beige seats which took two years to come across, and he had to go to Germany for them. But at only €200 for the pair, he knew he’d got himself a real bargain! “I don’t think the seller knew what he had, and all the time I was driving there, I was hoping he wouldn’t go on the internet and find out what they were really worth!”, Piotr exclaims. To save the rear seats, which were already damaged, he took them to a company that specialises in washing carpets, who cleaned them very gently three times. The rest of the interior, the door cards, the dashboard and headlining are all original and are a testament to how well the car was looked after during its life in Italy. He bought an E21 sport steering wheel from a BMW catalogue and found some original and very rare clocks from an E21 Alpina. The Alpina gear knob was from the same guy he’d spent the €3000 with, and the original Bavaria radio he won in an auction in Germany. He searched for floor mats for a long time but didn’t find any anywhere, so he made them himself from some coffee sacks(!).

If you think the wheels look a little unusual, you’d be right. Apparently, only three such examples are known to exist in the world. A local company, South Wheels, cut the centres out of a set of original 13” Alpina ones (sacrilege, we know!) and fabricated them into three-piece 16s, and they are absolutely stunning.

Another part of the car definitely not standard is the suspension. Piotr was always going to have it lowered as stance is an all-important aspect for cars in the Polish custom car scene. Initially, he was simply going to install shorter springs, but, on the notoriously bad streets of Lodz, with potholes so deep geologists could study their stratification, half of the city would become an obstacle course, so air suspension was the logical choice. The air ride was installed by a local company, CzesławAirSuspension, but it wasn’t straightforward. To fit the suspension, the front struts of the E21 needed some brackets welded on. They couldn’t find any good enough photos online of anyone else who’d done the same for an E21, so it was a complicated process to get the measurements right. Piotr has some competent engineering friends, though, and although they were prepared for some trial and error, it worked the first time. With a simple but elegant air tank install in the boot, the system was done, and it allows Piotr to drive his E21 like a normal car around the city, and can then go to the slammed look at the flick of a button.

The car was finished just as COVID happened, so Piotr had to wait to enjoy it properly, but now he loves taking it to local car shows and get-togethers and drives it out on the open roads of the countryside with his girlfriend on sunny days. For the future, he is thinking about adding a small turbo, as a company in America makes forced induction kits specifically for the 1800 engine. But for now, the car is done… besides, the garage workspace is already taken by a new project, a 1990 E30 325i Coup… “My dad was again sceptical when I bought this new car, but he always helps me, and when I have a problem, he always finds a solution. It’s really great making something from a bare shell to a show car with him,” enthuses Piotr, and while building project cars is a great experience, sharing that with someone else makes it all the more special.

THANKS

In particular, I would like to thank my father, who took part in the renovation and always helps me with everything and taught me a lot. Thanks also to my friends, Daniel and Emil, who were with me from the beginning of the project and visited me in the garage while I was working on the car. They are friends who are much older than me – you can say that they instilled in me a love for the classics! I would also like to thank everyone who cheered me on. It’s not over yet.

The boot is home to the tidy air tank install. Whether out on the road or parked up and aired out, this E21 looks stunning.

The custom exhaust system sounds rather fruity; the wheels were custom-made from a set of 13” Alpinas.

DATA FILE 1980 BMW 318 E21

• ENGINE AND TRANSMISSION: 1.8-litre four-cylinder M10B18, fully refurbished, custom straight-through exhaust. Getrag 242 four-speed manual gearbox
• CHASSIS: South Wheels custom three-piece 16” Alpina wheels, 165/45 (front) and 205/40 (rear) tyres, CzesławAirSuspension air-ride
• EXTERIOR: Full respray in BMW Sepia brown
• INTERIOR: Alpina gear knob, Bavaria radio, custom-mounted air pressure gauges

The hardest things to find were the beige seats which took two years to come across, and he had to go to Germany for them. But at only €200 for the pair, he knew he’d got himself a real bargain!

The 1.8-litre four-pot has been treated to some TLC to make sure it’s healthy. Interior is in exceptional condition; coffee bag floor mats look unusual but suit the car.