Junkyard Gem: 1985 BMW 318i Sedan

Internet Car Experts say that the BMW E30 is far too valuable to ever show up in a cheap self-service wrecking yard nowadays, but I continue to see them regularly. Sure, you'll have a much easier time finding the E36 and E46 versions of BMW's 3 Series in your local Ewe Pullet, and even the E90s are showing up in quantity these days, but I still see plenty of 1984-1991 E30s during my junkyard travels. Here's a nimble four-banger E30, spotted at a Silicon Valley yard last summer.

The M10 four-cylinder BMW engine goes way back, all the way to the early 1960s. 2002s had M10s, as did the very first 3-Series: the 320i. This one is a 1.8-liter rated at 101 horsepower; that's quite a bit less than the 121 horses in the 325e of the same year, but it also made the car 150 pounds lighter.

A surprisingly large proportion of U.S.-market E30s had automatic transmissions, but this one has the base five-speed manual.

The 1985 318i four-door sedan had a list price of $16,925, with the two-door priced at $16,430 (that's about $44,725 and $43,420 in 2022 dollars, respectively). Moving up to the six-cylinder 325e four-door that year meant spending at least $21,105 (around $55,775 today). If you'd headed to your local Toyota dealer in 1985, you could have bought a brand-new AE86 Corolla GT-S for $9,298, which meant 112 horsepower in a car that weighed 131 fewer pounds than the 318i. If only we had a time machine, eh?

You'll find one in every car.

Even in the land of the AE86, you could buy the 318i new.

The most powerful argument against the midlife crisis.