We’re all one for a good engine swap, especially ones that shove an absurdly large, powerful engine into a tiny car. This BMW is a perfect example of that, as it takes the somewhat unloved E21 3-Series and outfits it with the V10 from an E60 M5.
The first thing you notice about the car, which is actually up for sale, is the body kit, which includes a new wider front bumper and molded fender flares. Elsewhere, the car features E60 M5 wheels, red brakes with drilled rotors, a small wing on the rear decklid, and blacked-out trim.
See Also: BMW 1M With The E60 M5’s V10 Is A Super Sleeper
But besides this car’s ostentatious visuals, the real star of the show is its engine. As mentioned before, under the hood lies the 5.0L V10 from an E60 M5, which, according to the listing, makes a potent 600 hp (608 PS / 447 kW). And for those of you who know your M5s, you’ll be aware that that output’s 100 hp (101 PS / 75 kW) greater than stock. If that figure is to be believed, we’d be curious to know exactly what modifications were able to increase power so significantly, as the listing only mentions a custom active exhaust and an ECU remap.
What’s really interesting, though, is that in addition to the engine, the owner of this car managed to swap in the interior from an E60 M5 as well. This includes everything from the dashboard, to the instrument cluster, to the entire center console (including the shifter for the SMG transmission that was also swapped in with the engine). We hate to say it, but the E60 dash against the E21 door cards doesn’t look as bad as we thought.
Read More: Renner’s M5 V10-Powered BMW E30 M3 Stole The Show At SEMA
If you’re interested, the custom-built BMW E23 is up for sale in Germany on Mobile.de for a sizzling €49,000 (equal to nearly US$52,000 at the time of writing). And if like us, you’re wondering how much will an actual E60 M5 set you back in Germany, we saw a bunch of them priced from as low as €20,000 (about US$21,000) for higher mileage examples up to €65,000 (US$68,500) for pristine models with under 40,000 km (25,000 miles).
![](https://www.carscoops.com/wp-content/themes/carscoops/assets/images/icons/arrow.png"){kind=icon}