BimmerLife has been at Bimmerfest 2018 to bring you on-the-ground updates of some of the wildest, rowdiest, and most interesting BMWs at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California. The famous two-day headliner event continues tomorrow as well, but you can check out a brief photo gallery from Saturday below.
To a first-time attendee, the assortment of cars was dumbfounding, with everything from Instagram-famous builds to low-key restomods and swaps to maniacal big-power builds. It’s a sampling of everything in the BMW world—and it’s all on display in an impressive celebration of BMW passion and enthusiasm.
Anyone who follows even a few Instagram-famous builds should be familiar with the type of overfender-based widebody kits for BMWs new and old made by Pandem, Liberty Walk, and others, but the quantity of such kits at Bimmerfest—and the immense expense of the builds—is astounding. There’s no place else in North America where you can see such a sampling of widebody BMWs of every vintage.
As with any true enthusiast gathering, wagons were abundant, too, many of them impressively modified. These ranged from F31 Tourings to plenty of E39s, including several with S62 V8 and six-speed swaps.
Plenty of models new and old in striking colors showed up, some of them courtesy of BMW Individual and others courtesy of SoCal’s multitude of wrap companies. Interpretations of the F82 M4 were particularly popular, appearing in everything from chrome to camouflage to rich BMW paints. It should also go without saying that manual transmissions are king, even in late-model BMWs.
Stanceworks co-founder and BimmerLife contributor Mike Burroughs was in attendance, of course, bringing along his “Parts Car” E28 in full Motul livery. The Bimmerfest show marked the debut of Momo’s new Heritage wheel, a striking flat-face, six-spoke design that looks dramatically functional on this track car.
Plenty of vendor booths captured the spirit of the event in the collections of cars they included, such as the excellent display at KW Suspension, including an M-Technic E30 convertible, a stunning Mediterranean Blue F90 M5 on HRE wheels, and a classic Alpine White F80 M3.
Who needs a 318ti when you could have an E36 sport-ute?
E30s were as popular as ever this year, and in a wide variety of styles. Whether bagged, swapped, original, or restored, Bimmerfest takes all kinds.
While Sunday typically brings out more vintage metal, the 50th anniversary of the 2002 platform saw an impressive variety of attendees on Saturday, from original cars (sometimes from near-original owners) to incredible creations like the patina-and-clear-coat build on the right above. (In fact, it looks a lot like Satch Carlson’s old 2002ti rally car.) Oh, and it’s M20-swapped, which will no doubt help carry around the weight of the road-trip equipment up top.
What’s an enthusiast gathering without the opportunity to draw all over a chalkboard E30?
The BMW M Performance Parts booth was a popular feature, particularly when the team would let the rowdiest of BMW’s exhaust options sing freely.
The biggest element of Bimmerfest by far is the reminder not to take style and fashion too seriously. There are some impressive cars for all tastes at the event, but the purpose of almost every one of them is chiefly to have fun. This Lightning McQueen-inspired E92 is just one of the many cars at the event designed not only to be a strong performer, but also to bring a smile to the face of onlookers.
For more of the wild charm of Bimmerfest 2018, check out our gallery below – click the image to browse!
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Did we miss your favorite car? Add it in the comments, or tag @bmwcca on Instagram!—Nick Parente