OK people, I need some help here. I've just mocked up this rear cage in exhaust tube prior to making it up in CDS to fit the back of my car with the seats and trim retained.



Anyway after trial fitting this I started thinking that I'm moving further and further away from my original intended use for the coupe. I had originaly planned to rebuild it as a stripped out trackday car, however I seem to have ended up with a shiney, overweight road car

I think I ended up here because during the rebuild I was worried about damaging the resale value, but I think I've just realised (accepted) that it's probably not worth any more than I paid for it, despite spending the same again on the refurb

So my questions are:-

Should I keep it as it is?



Or turn it into something that looks a bit more like this?



The difference in performance and handling as it is now and when I was running it around completely stripped for the respray is quite marked so I would start with a serious weight saving exercise and move as much as posible in board, i.e fuel tank and battery etc ( battery is in the boot at the moment)

So, what do you think?

Strip it!!!

Strip it and let us all know how much weight is saved... I was thinking about selling my coop and buying (I have one in mind) one just for track use only. I may wait to see your results first

1. dont strip

if its your daily drive keep it. if not strip it...

Stripping it does make the car inside quite noisy, so if you like listening to the radio or music, you do need it turned up and to chat with a passenger at motorway speeds, you almost need to shout at each other.

If your use it purely for track I'd strip it but if your using it on the road it does start to get annoying. One of my old e30's was stripped out and set up as a road legal track car and I loved every second of driving it until I started using it every day then the noise and lack of any comfort started to get to me.

It's only a weekend fun car so noise isn't a big problem, this is the last one I did purely as a track day car



We used to wear headphones on long journeys unless I wanted to listen to these of course

Do you still have that BMW ? That model is very sought after now.
From you're first coupe photo,it looks very nice in its road going form. So keep it that way imo.
You know alot about putting together a track car from what i can see. And cheap coupes are a plenty,so it's a no brainer i reckon.

keep it like this...buy another for cheap and strip it....you have a nice coupe shame if you strip it

Agree keep it and buy a cheap one

I haven't got it anymore, I sold it a few years ago. It is still around though, this is it now


Not sure on the colour, wheels and arches are nice though.

Sell the nice one and get one with rougher cosmetics.

And here is the poll...

To Strip or not to Strip? single choice
	Strip It
	Dont Strip It
	Sell It
Votes accepted starting: 21/06/2011 17:43 You must vote before you can view the results of this poll.

I like this Mario

You've got this far Alan, why not strip and keep all original bits, either sell them to fund further goodies, or keep them to re-fit if you get bored with the noise What's are the engine's stats like before you go any further, all good It would be a shame to see that gleaming paint get chipped away on the track though I can see it's a tough one though. It all comes down to economics and time in the end IMHO.

I would absolutely 100% strip it! Keep all the bits that come off just in case you ever came to sell it.

Think by the poll it's majority.
Although that hasn't stopped the tube strike with 66%against

Just my luck, a dead heat

Toss a coin

Thanks for the votes guy's and as it's so close I can feel the "Strip it" and keep some of the parts option coming on.

I'll keep all the parts that are part of the unique styling of the coupe, i.e the internal colour coding and just remove everything else I can to save weight. I can feel my tool box calling me already

i just voted against

loads of grotty coups that you could strip and cut holes in

yours is waaay too nice to turn into a track car imo