E30’s Rarest Part!

E30’s RAREST Part!

I’ve always admired conceptual designers like Tobias WongMatty 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

At The Vintage 2023

At

The Vintage 2023

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!