Announcing the E30 Diving Board Bumper Strip 2.0

We’ve made some updates to the classic E30 Diving Board Bumper Strip! We’ve made it easier to mount, look better, and improve convenience. Go check it out!
We’ve made some updates to the classic E30 Diving Board Bumper Strip! We’ve made it easier to mount, look better, and improve convenience. Go check it out!
I’ve always admired conceptual designers like Tobias Wong, Matty Benedetto, and Katerina Kamprani for their ability to come up with Industrial Designs which aren’t necessarily useful. In fact, sometimes these ideas are absurdly, and intentionally not useful.
Anyone who has known me for any amount of time knows I’m a bit of a jokester, but for some reason I’ve never been great at coming up with ideas for silly product designs. I suppose I’m just an all-function guy. But last summer it finally happened. I had that silly idea!
Just in case you’re not familiar – “blinker fluid” is an old car gag of mysterious origins, whereby a car enthusiast prankster would attempt to convince an automotive novice that s/he needs blinker fluid. The prompt is generally when one of the turn signal bulbs in the car of the soon-to-be-pranked burned out, or when it’s time for routine maintenance such as an oil change or filling up the washer fluid.
The joke eventually settled into the fabric of the internet from car forums to social media replies. I always thought the gag was missing a crucial element; Where does the blinker fluid actually go? YouTuber ChrisFix went viral a few years ago with a very clever 4/1 video where he demoed adding the blinker fluid directly in to the blinker bulb housing. While it was a well edited piece, I felt it a bit of a conceptual stretch.
So when I had the idea last summer I knew I had to do it. Yes, the blinker fluid gag is a little overplayed at this point. However, as a hardware guy, I figured I could bring a new twist to an old car joke. First, different manufacturers have different ways of engineering things. So it’s easily conceivable that BMW would have a fluid tank where Ford might add it directly to the unit. Second, With the E30 having that extra space in the engine bay it was a great spot for the tank, and lends an air of “credibility” to the story. And finally, since I don’t naturally come up with ideas like these very often, it was literally a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do something fun & silly – so I couldn’t resist!
Hope you enjoyed this bit! If you have an old BMW – or any car really – that you can’t get parts for anymore, please reach out and maybe we can get you that impossible-to-find part. And heck, if you like what we’re doing and you want to support our startup, but we don’t have a part you need yet, we’ll print you a blinker fluid reservoir!
We love the E30! At least enough to name our startup after it. But we understand that not everyone is fortunate enough to drive God’s Chariot! And that’s OK! Because there are a few other great BMWs rollin’ around, like, the E46.
One thing is for sure, the power window buttons in the E30 are virtually indestructible. The E36’s buttons looked similar, but were actually rocker action switches which were fairly reliable if not quite as durable as the E30’s dead-simple, press-button hardware.
However for the E46 power window lever, BMW went full-on “planned obsolescence” with this three-mechanical-level, dual-action design. They’re just an absolute masterpiece of crap engineering! The design itself is actually somewhat sophisticated in a minimalist way, and admittedly they’re quite enjoyable to use. However these things are simply complete junk, and always breaking off!
They’re made of barely over 1mm thin translucent white plastic, which becomes very brittle after 15-20 years. They can still be purchased “new”, but it’s not like they just popped out of the mold; they’ve been sitting on a warehouse shelf somewhere for a decade or two… getting crispy. And of course you have to buy the whole assembly. Or you can get them used…. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So we decided to fix that. We reverse-engineered the E46 power window lever, and added some extra material for strength – where we could (there’s just not a lot of room to play with in there). And to install, they simply snap in!
While the E30 will always be our true love, the E46 is a pretty great car too! We have a couple more things coming for the Gen4 3er… and maybe even the E36! So get on the email list, or “like & subscribe” to know when we get the latest part up.
If your E46 power window levers are starting to break loose – or are completely gone, get the E30 Update E46 power window levers. It’s much better than getting used parts, and they’ve been re-engineered for extra strength. Made with new, durable PETG plastic so they haven’t been dry-rotting for 20 years, and you don’t have to buy and install a whole new switch assembly.
Yeet the winter blues with a spring cruise! Join us for the “first evva” 3/30 Day 2024! It’s a vintage BMW event celebrating the E30, but all 3-Series BMWs invited!
Due to a scheduling conflict, we are unable to make The Vintage this year 🙁 So we decided to have a little local get-together here in Chattanooga.
The concept actually began last summer as as 3/25 Day, way before we knew we couldn’t make the long-running show in Asheville, NC. We were probably going to wait a couple years, but when this scheduling SNAFU popped up, we figured we’d get our spring vintage BMW fix by fast-tracking our own little event. However, we wanted it to be on a weekend, so our genius COO/CMO had the idea to make it “E30 3/30”. So that’s what it is!
Meet us in Coolidge park at 1:00, Saturday March 30th with your E30 (or any 3 Series Bimmer. Or hey, any old BMW really, we’re not gonna turn you away. At least not this year!
We plan on grabbing a lite lunch at Brewhaus (or wherever you want), and “kicking tires” with some friends of ours for a little while. After that we plan on doing a fun-run out Suck Creek Road, and grabbing another bite at River Drifters.
We look forward to seeing you on 3/30 Day 2024!
*Participants are encouraged to dine & drive responsibly.
You might be shocked to find this out, but I have a serious thing for cars. To the point that might be an understatement. And slight character flaw. In middle school and high school I dreamt of becoming a great car designer, constantly doodling cars instead of doing my math homework. Although being the pre-internet days, I didn’t really know who any of the designers were other than the father/son Porsche legacy. The generic car books generally didn’t attribute the designers other than the passing mention of Bertone or Pininfarina.
My first car was handed down to me by my pop when I was 17. A 1974 Karmann Ghia droptop in Saturn Yellow. In the mid 90s it was a bit of a joke to my friends, but I loved it. I had grown up in the back seats of aircooled VWs mostly, so it was a familiar mode of transportation to me. And I thought it was cool, which is said, is all that matters. But I can’t say I knew who the designer was other than it was someone employed by the Italian design studio Ghia.
But that’s the way it is in most industries in fact. Heck, I’ve designed several things that are in tens of thousands of peoples homes and nobody knows who I am!
But an elite few designers rise to the very top of the industrial design field.
When one thinks of BMW, sure, many might quickly gravitate to some of the latest offerings, namely, their technically impressive ///M cars and SUVs. Others might celebrate or lament the E60-86 creations from the peak of the Bengal era. However, it’s impossible to understate the significance and timelessness of the automobiles produced in the 1980-1999 era of BMWs under the design direction of Klaus Johannes Luthe.
Born on December eighth, nineteen thirty two, Mr Luthe would have been 91 today. I won’t rehash his career (or tragic personal life) here, as many bloggers have already done fine jobs of that. But suffice to say, he worked his way to the top starting with busses, contributed to the design of the original Fiat 500, and surely at least commented on the development of the E36/7-8 and E46. Pretty cool.
This is after all, e30update.com, so I want to focus on the masterwork itself. What makes it so great?
First I want to get a pet peeve off my chest. I absolutely loath automotive styling cliches. Trends are one thing, and BMW – until recently – hired designers who were masters of translating design and styling trends into sophisticated transportation packages that reflected a focused design and engineering philosophy.
Cliches on the other hand, are the recycled, and rehashed, stolen, overused, and stolen again styling details that are obvious ripoffs of styling details from competing manufacturers. And it’s almost always totally cringe. Think tail fins in the 50s. Although some of those were pretty rad (I’m looking at you 1959 Chevy Impala)!
I get it. you’ve gotta stay relevant. You’ve gotta keep up with the times. Sure. And everyone’s guilty of it. Heck, my Ghia has tail fins. And not even very good ones by the time ’74 hit. Speaking of which, that reminds me of another cliche pet peeve: ginormous tail lights. Happened to the Ghia. Even happened to the E30.
Sometimes it’s regulations I’m sure, but did the original Lincoln Navigator really need tail lights that big? I mean, they literally looked like translucent toboggans. Totally horrendous. But I digress; I’ll do a separate styling cliche blog post some day because those only scratch the surface of my list.
Luthe was certainly fortunate to have inherited an in-place styling platform with a refined set of cleverly thought-through and developed cues. I’m obviously referring to things like the kidney grilles, Hofmeister kink (which yes, was a styling cliche…), sharp, full-length body crease, quad-round headlights, and long (but not too long) hoods. However, one need only take a look at todays raft of BMW offerings to see how this seemingly straightforward set of guidelines can be grotesquely implemented.
But grotesque wasn’t Luthe’s thing. He was of course an old-school German designer, no doubt influenced by the Bauhaus school of design, Dieter Rams and the Northern European “less is more” philosophy of design. In fact Luthe coined his own phrase for his distain of over-baked styling cliches calling them “optical environmental pollution”. Which I’m sure sounds awesome when spoken in German.
Although styling cues such as horizontal creases, four round headlights, forward-slicing window lines, or even two vertically mirrored grill openings weren’t exclusive to BMW, it was the combination of those stylistic elements and the consistency across models that made BMW styling so distinctive, then and now.
The other, and arguably more important factor of automobile design is proportion. Don’t believe me? Look at the difference between the VW Rabbit and Ford Gremlin. Sure, that’s an extreme comparison, but it can also be seen in the transition from the E21 to the E30. Not to say that the E21 is an irreparably hideous catastrophe of car design, but there is a special proportional balance in the E30 that simply doesn’t exist in the models that came before it. Or perhaps after.
And that takes incredible skill and talent.
To this day the E30 is still one of the first models that comes to mind when the letters BMW are mentioned. Yes, the Neue Klasse models like the 2002s brought BMW roaring into the second half of the 20th Century. But even those are pretty obscure today. The incredibly popular E39 5series is perhaps what most might visualize, but to be fair could almost be mistaken for an E36, if not an E30.
The BMW 3 series manufactured from 1982-1992 lives in this magical realm between the minimalist restraint of the mid 20th century, while simultaneously revving up for the 21st. In my opinion it really wasn’t until the 2010s that the E30 even looked that dated. Which interestingly is right about the time the values started to climb. And not all cars values start automatically moving skyward after 40 years. That reward is saved for the ones that are well engineered, well built, and of course, well designed.
So here’s to Klaus on his birthday; the incredible talent behind “God’s Chariot”. Hopefully some day not too soon, I’ll get to hear him say “optical environmental pollution”.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! It’s time for the E30 Update Black Friday 2023 sale! Remember – E30 Update has ten parts up now and over 100 more in the pipeline! Because we’re so dankbar 4 U, we’re offering 50% off site wide like all the other cool kids!
Cow Catcher Brackets – Diving Board Tuck – Normally $46.00
These bumper tuck Cow Catcher brackets are designed specifically for those of us who have tucked the front “Diving Board” bumper. They lift the “Cow Catcher” up 15mm to tighten the gap between the top of the Cow Catcher air dam and the aluminum bumper.
Cow Catcher Brackets Normally – $44.00
Center “Cow Catcher” Bracket printed in FFF PETG, .2mm layer height, 75% gyroid infill.
Cow Catcher Corner Brackets – Normally $18.47
E30 “Cow Catcher” corner support bracket keeps the corners of your cow catcher nice and tight.
Cow Catcher Side Support Bracket – Normally $23.00
Because these brackets are NLA and hard to find used in usable condition, often times people resort to popping in sheet metal screws, using zip-ties, rivets, or other makeshift solutions. In addition to the front support brackets and corner support brackets, E30 Update has re-created a stock-like solution for this annoying #E30problem!
Fuse Puller – Normally $16.00
If your fuse box is missing this finger-saving little accessory, here’s a cool little replica. Only from E30 Update.
Cigarette Lighter Retainer Clip – Normally $24.00
If you prefer a stock console setup in your E30, this cigarette lighter retainer clip from E30 Update is a must. It provides a firm, like-new DC outlet experience for plugging in a USB dock, or even a cigarette lighter!
Diving Board Bumper Strip – MJF Normally $189.00
As with all parts, they can also simply go missing. Owners then have to zip-tie their plates on, or tie them up with wire. Some people want to mount a Euro style plate, still others just want a clean-looking Diving Board™. This product solves all those problems! If you haven’t already, go check out the blog post https://e30update.com/updates/love-4-the-diving-board. We also have an install video over on the YouTube.
GLOVE BOX “DRIVE” LATCH – Normally $48.66
While the original glove box drive latch is metal, it can still break, (we know first hand!). When it does, it can very annoyingly leave you locked out of your glove box. If you have important info like your registration and proof of insurance in there, it can become an even bigger problem :/
GLOVE BOX “DRIVEN” LATCH – Normally $48.66
The glove box “driven” latch rarely breaks, but like the drive latch, it is made of the same brittle pot metal. If it does, you can now replace just the latch, without having to get the entire assembly. It also saves the time of having to switch out your tumbler or having to replace the entire assembly and then having to have a separate glove box key.
GLOVE BOX LATCH HOUSING – FFF – Normally $28.48
If, like most E30 glove box latch housings, yours is cracking and crumbling with age, you can now replace it with a new, 3D printed part.
Thanks for looking at the E30 Update Black Friday 2023 sale!
Check us out on the socials!
Hi, Michael here! Time for a long personal story about fuse pullers that nobody asked for! That probably sounds ridiculous for something as inconsequential as a fuse puller, but it’s a big part of the E30 Update journey!
I grew up in the back seats of air-cooled Volkswagens and eventually my first car, which I still have, was an air-cooled VW. If you know anything about the old “air-cooleds” (and other older European cars), you know about the old-school, “pill” style fuses. If you don’t (and I’m learning that some people do not), they’re little pill-shaped pieces of plastic (the OGs were ceramic) with thin, hourglass-shaped metal strips which extend the length of the pill structure and are then formed over the ends. They snap in to the fuse panel like an AAAA battery. They are very easy to replace because you can just pinch them with your fingers and pull them out. Not only that, it’s easy to tell if they’re blown or not because you can easily see if the metal strip is totally charred or not.
Why they decided to change that design, I’ll never… well ok, FINE I understand why, but the downsides weren’t THAT big of a deal……. In My Opinion!
Whatever… what was I gonna say? Oh right, eventually I got a car with modern fuses; a 1990 BMW 325 is! Holy Crap! I was only three years out of college and driving a dream machine! How did I pull that off?!?! I’ll save that story for another time. Before getting that car I was still super skeptical of BMWs in general, but my mom’s 2001 E46 wagonstarted to change my perception a little. Besides, I loved the look of the older models so I figured I’d take a chance.
Man was I sold.
I was a little bit intimidated though – now remember, I came from air-cooleds, so I didn’t even know the ins-n-outs of a liquid cooling system (more on that another time). One thing that drove me absolutely NUTS though, was that extracting fuses was a total nightmare! WHY I thought to myself… the HELL… would ANYONE… design something SO… HARD…. to get OUT?!?!?!?!
Then one day when I was at my grandfather’s, who was a big inspiration for me to work on my cars myself, went to check a fuse, and popped out a little fuse puller out of it’s little nook in the fuse box. DUUUUH! Fuse puller! Of Course! First thing I did when I got back to my car was check for the fuse puller, which naturally, was missing from my fuse box. Damn car had it’s original flashlight, but not the fuse puller. Because of course it didn’t.
So I forgot about it and kept pulling fuses by hand finger. Ouch. So ouchie was it, that, I have to admit, I got a bit lazy about checking fuses…
One day I noticed I had a headlight out. Well, I thought, who knows when those things were replaced last. So I got all four headlights because they were on sale at BavAuto – Remember those guys? After procrastinating replacing it (got a written warning for having my brights on) I finally popped the new headlight in… Still no light. After scratching my head for a few seconds, I did the next cliché thing that one does after scratching one’s head: facepalm.
THE FUSE! NO! NOT THE FUSE!!!
Yes. It was the fuse.
I sheepishly went to the auto parts store after consulting the user manual (another original item the ’90 had other than the fuse puller) and got the appropriate fuse. After painfully wrenching it out with my fingers and popping the new one in, the headlight un-miraculously worked again.
I blame it all on not having a fuse puller and I’m sticking to my story!
After “Isis” was tragically totaled, I drove several other cars. E36’s, E46’s, I drove an SMG for the first time which was pretty rad, but the car was a junker and they wanted WAAAY too much for it. After several months, I was finally able to find another E30 to look at during a family reunion in Memphis. After only a couple minutes in to the test drive I knew I was back in my automotive home. Even though it was an es, rather than an is, It nevertheless sank in: there really is something special about the E30. They don’t call it God’s Chariot for nothing.
After taking delivery (yes, the guy drove it across the state for me(!!)) of Isis’s replacement, I naturally started doing a deeper dive. “Oh! Hey! It has a fuse puller!” I noticed. Of course, after 4+ years I still haven’t needed it… not that I’m hoping to.
Another thing my ’86 has is heated seats. I haven’t done a bunch of research on this, but I think there was some kind of factory, or possibly dealer option for heated seats. However, I’m 93% certain the upgrade on this car was probably done long after it rolled off the dealer’s lot; probably at the same time the front seats were reupholstered (in vinyl 😞).
The drivers seat heating element was operational when I purchased the black, 1986 coupe, but the passenger’s side was not. This time I remembered to check the fuses. After poking around the fuse box a couple minutes I realized what that mysterious box grafted to the side of the fuse box was… a mini fuse box just for the heated seats. Lo and behold… Pill fuses!? One of them was obviously charred to oblivion. “Well that may explain why the passenger’s seat heat is inoperable” I thought to myself. A quick trip to the auto parts store will fix that problem… so I assumed.
Now, I know you’re thinking “why is he veering off topic talking about heated seats”? Don’t worry, it’s about to make sense!
As I scoured the fuse section I was amazed at all the fancy, light-up fuses, the tiny mini fuses… almost an entire aisle’s worth… but no pill fuses?!?! I wandered back up front to find an associate. “Do you have any of these?” I asked incredulously. “What’s that?” the employee who couldn’t have been much over twenty asked. After a few seconds of awkward silence I stuttered “wuh.. ahf.. a.. fuse?”…
I’m not sure anything has yet made me feel quite as old as his reply:
“Huh……. I ain’t never seen one o’ them before”.
Then again, I’d never seen a fuse puller until a couple years prior, so I’m not sure which is worse 😅.
Either way, if your fuse box is missing this finger-saving little accessory, here’s a cool replica. Only from E30 Update.
NO AI WAS USED IN THE CREATION OF THIS CONTENT
In true old-school BMW fashion, E30s were not equipped with cup holders. While not as much of a space hog, they were able to find a spot for a cigarette lighter (where you plug in your USB dock ;)) in the center console. While nearly every car ever made after WWII has one of these conveniences, the cigarette lighter retainer clip is somehow one of the weak points of the E30 interior.
It’s no secret that BMW tends to err on the side of over-engineering. True to form, the cigarette lighter, or more accurately, the cigarette lighter retainer clip, is a tiny, over-engineered piece of plastic, Even in the E30. It is a translucent amber, cylindrical plastic sleeve. Halfway around the circumference from each other, two clips protrude from the top ring and past the outer wall. The two clips hold the the canister to the ash tray assembly for inserting DC power adapters. Like much of the other plastic attached to these 80s legends, this little plastic clip becomes brittle and often disintegrates after 30+ years. The power port is then left to float around in the cavity between the console and the transmission tunnel.
At this point the port is resting on the two electrical leads at the bottom of the can. Because it is in the vicinity of the ash tray which most people fill with loose change, a coin can find its way underneath the cigarette lighter port, bridge the two leads and short the circuit – or worse… ask me how I know.
Printed in clear translucent PETG, the replacement cigarette lighter retainer clip from E30 Update has been engineered to be stronger than OEM. E30 Update now has an OEM style replacement if yours has cracked and dropped out of the ash tray. It is not amber like the original, so we recommend replacing the stock illumination with a red or amber LED replacement lighting.
If you prefer a stock console setup, this cigarette lighter retainer clip from E30 Update is a must. Installation is super breezy, and when installed, it provides a firm, like-new DC outlet experience. E30 owners no longer have to find random less than ideal solutions for plugging in a USB dock, or even a cigarette lighter!
What an incredible event! For anyone who wasn’t there, you just have to know, At The Vintage 2023 ended with a spectacular double rainbow and a black bear!
Now that I gave away maybe the best part of this years event, I do want to say Scott & team once again did world-class job organizing “Another Great Event” for At The Vintage 2023. This year was my second year back after having not been since 2015 when it was in the Winston Salem area, and my first ever as a vendor. And first time as a vendor anywhere for that matter!
I have to admit I feel a bit awkward just bursting back in to the scene and immediately trying to hawk E30 parts. But after so much positive feedback last year hanging out at the Clarion hotel and at the main event in Hot Springs, talking to event goers and other vendors, I felt confident the At The Vintage crowd would be accepting of my vendor-ship this year. I was thrilled to have my highest hopes validated.
In fact, I was a little amazed at how many times I heard the phrase “Thank you for doing this”! So I want to give a huge “THANKS!” to everyone who stopped by the booth and offered support, insights, and ideas for future parts!
Already the orders are coming in and we’ve only just gotten started. While that tells me we are on to something, I’m also just thrilled I’m able to use my skills to give something back to a community that is just as passionate about these cars as I am.
If you’ve never been to “The Vintage” before and you are on the East coast, I hope you’ll come check out the event next year. There are tons of great people, great cars spanning from “barely got here” to “Pebble Beach”. Above all it’s just a bunch of great people and it’s just superchill.
I can’t promise a double rainbow, but if you own a vintage BMW or appreciate vintage German cars, you’ll have a fantastic time!