A bright green BMW M3 Touring has been crushed by police in the UK after it was discovered that it had been built from the parts of various stolen M3s.
While BMW is currently working on a Touring version of the current-generation M3, it did not offer an M30 Touring in the car’s F80 generation. Despite that, the owner of this 3-Series took it upon themselves to build their own estate, based on a regular 3-Series Touring.
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British authorities first suspected that something was afoot when they realized that the car’s license plate was registered to a diesel 3-Series. After investigating the car, they discovered that not only had its exterior been transformed but it also featured the powertrain of an M3, not a diesel 3-Series. Further investigations traced its components to no less than four other 3-Series models, including two M3s that had been stolen.
In a video posted to YouTube, a traffic officer from the West Midlands Police revealed that the engine and running gear were sourced from at least two M3s that have been stolen in the local area. The first M3 was reported stolen on March 30, 2018, in Sutton Coldfield while the second was stolen on September 30, 2019, from a car dealership in All Saints, Wolverhampton. Two 3-Series estates were also used “to create the main body and the panoramic roof,” Express and Star reports.
“This BMW looked great on the outside, you can’t fault the paint job, but scratch beneath the veneer and it was just tag welded and structurally unsafe. A coat of paint won’t save your life in a collision,” PC Mark Wheaver from the Central Motorway Police Group said in a statement. “Whoever had bodged this car together had gone to significant lengths to try and hide its true identity. Numbers had been ground off and stickers removed but we have expert vehicle examiners who use techniques to overcome these obstacles.”