Throwing Stars: How many E31's came with them in (rough) percentage terms?

In theory you could look here and count for yourself.

I took the liberty and saved you a way

S298 BMW 16" ALLOY WHEEL TURBINE STYLING (Styl. 9): 7757
S299 BMW 17" CROSS-SPOKE,COMPOSITE WHEEL (Styl.5): 2914
S780 BMW 18" ALLOY WHEEL, M PARALLEL SPOKE (Styl. 37): 36
S782 BMW 17" M ALLOY WHEELS M SYSTEM II (Styl. 21): 822*, **

*All those under the subheading S940 Special Request Equipment are not taken into account and sum up to an additional.
S782 BMW 17" M ALLOY WHEELS M SYSTEM II (Styl. 21): 225

**Another 1205 cars - 868 ECE LHD CSi, 112 ECE RHD CSi, 225 US-CSi´s came with wheel S782 BMW 17" M ALLOY WHEELS M SYSTEM II (Styl. 21) - not mentioned in build data sheets due to nature of "standard option".

Hence summing up:
S782 BMW 17" M ALLOY WHEELS M SYSTEM II (Styl. 21): 2252

Additionally there are 57+97 cars which came equipped with 18" Alpina rims.

The remaining ones were all equipped with the 16" basket weave rims (Styl. 8): ca. 17500
Breaking this down to the specific 8er models is something for a cold winter´s night - you can try and talk me into it

Cheers
Reinhard

Great Reinhard

Interesting to see that only 36 got the M Parallel , I assume many did buy them later as it seems to be on several cars around.

I was about to ask if you have pix of the different rim types , but I know that answer so instead I will ask can you post them
as yours are probably better than the ones I found on Google

Regards
Terje

There you go, taken from here:

Wheel	BMW name
Cross spoke split rim 17" - S299	Styling 5
Basket weave 16"	Styling 8
Turbine - S298	Styling 9
M System II - S782	Styling 21
M Parallel - S780	Styling 37

The reason why parallel spoke 18´s are much more popular today than back in the day is that BMW made quite a few marketing mistakes in advertising them. They were only offered from 1995 and exclusively for the CSi which means they were no longer marketed for the 8 past 1996. In addition to that they cost a whopping 3800 DEM (ca. 1900 EUR) on top of and replacing the 17" M-system II/17" cross spoke which came as the standard wheels with any CSi.

Later on they were available & extremely popular for the E38 (direct fit for E31) along with the E39. Near 100% of the Styling 37 wheels on E31´s today started out on an E38.

Cheers
Reinhard

Great link that one

My favorite of these rims will be the

Hope to get my hands on a set sooner or later , there should be a chance as nearly 3000 cars came with it.

They will only be your favourites until that day when it comes to cleaning...
Those are the worst possible rims - ever
Prices for cross spoke 17´s have been on the rise up to 1k EUR per set of 4 and the condition of many/most is no longer really appealing to the eye since the bolts themselves do not age well with chrome flaking off. Refurbishing is possible but with a single bolt around 2 EUR and IIRC 34 per wheel it is a fairly expensive exercise.
Would rather buy parallel spoke 37´s - new set around 1500 EUR still available ex-BMW

Cheers
Reinhard

huldra66: Really? I think the BBS LM on your E31 look drop dead gorgeous...

Zitat von revtor;114086

huldra66: Really? I think the BBS LM on your E31 look drop dead gorgeous...

I totally agree , but of the original ones i like the Style 5 best my Black one also came with them originally but they where lost before I got the car.
My spare tyre is still the Style5

Having a set of style 5 in the future would be nice but the BBS LM would not be sold

Regards
Terje

Zitat von reinhard;114079

They will only be your favourites until that day when it comes to cleaning...
Those are the worst possible rims - ever
Prices for cross spoke 17´s have been on the rise up to 1k EUR per set of 4 and the condition of many/most is no longer really appealing to the eye since the bolts themselves do not age well with chrome flaking off. Refurbishing is possible but with a single bolt around 2 EUR and IIRC 34 per wheel it is a fairly expensive exercise.
Would rather buy parallel spoke 37´s - new set around 1500 EUR still available ex-BMW

Cheers
Reinhard

He he, I have to agree with you there Reinhard, they would be a real PITA to clean. My car came to me with BBS RSII fitted which I really like but even they are a bit of a pain to keep clean. The spare wheel in my car is a styling 8 16", I suspect my car came with those originally.

Zitat von BBMatic;114108

Reinhard - thanks very much for the info. I make that roughly 1,050 8s with Stars on.. not nearly as many as I would have guessed.
I wonder if European cars account for most of those.. they seem more unusual in the USA.

And I have a set on my new project car
I need to keep them it seems

Zitat von BBMatic;114108

...they seem more unusual in the USA.

Indeed, apart from the 225 US-CSi´s (overlooked all CSI´s standard equipment in the first count, hence total now 2252 - see corrected posting above) none of the throwing stars went to the US. Also the cross spoke 17" made it into build sheets for US cars only twice with one being CD05213 the private car of David Hockney, heaviliy individualized by the M-GmbH and the other one CC90193 seemingly never shipped out to the US.

655 of the 2252 cars equipped with S782 wheels were UK Sports 840Ci´s. This corresponds to near 30%.

1135 sets of cross spoke 17´s (S299) made it to the UK starting with post facelift M70´s in 1/1993 and from thereon found on all variants of the E31.

A tiny S299/UK breakdown :

M70-A: 58
M60-A 409
M60-M: 21
M62-A:607
S70-6: 40

Cheers
Reinhard

I have 2 e31 spec sets.
Time to refurbish them because truly they suit the e31 so well

Zitat von BBMatic;114125

655 UK 840ci Sports came with Style 21s -- I'm assuming that if they are designated 'Sports', we are talking about the later 4.4 rather than the 4.0.

That is the case. The "Sports" designation came in January 1997.

Zitat

Worldwide, 3,075 M62 840s were produced.So, roughly 1/5th of all M62 840s came with Throwing Stars

Almost. Quoted above were only the RHD cars for the UK with S782 in build sheet. Again (sorry) 48 UK cars omitted that had them in S940. Some 26 more RHD cars with S782 for OZ and Eire plus another measly 54 LHD cars for Europe and rest of ECE world.
This totals up to 729 RHD and 54 LHD M62´s - 783 all in equalling 25%.

Zitat

Focussing on the UK for a moment, I imagine that as many as 1/4 of all 4.4 840s came with Style 21's

1406 M62 for the UK. This means that the figure "693" corresponds to almost half the lot (49.4%). Including the RHD´s for other countries it is a ratio of 729/1473= 49.5%

Much different for the ECE LHD production 54/ (708 A + 93 M) = 6.7%

The reason for this is that the UK Sports kit was more or less a freebie whereas the others had to cough up a substantial amount for the forged 17" wheels.

Cheers
Reinhard

Question: if you got Throwing Stars as original on a 97 850 (USA version) was it "normal" to get a turbine wheel as the spare tire?

Once the US-spec CSi production was finished in 1996 there wasn´t any US spec car which received styling 21 throwing stars ex-factory. On a 1997 Ci they must have been purchased separately at some later stage and the person buying them skimped out on the 5th

Cheers
Reinhard

Perfect diagnostics as usual Reinhard.

Zitat von reinhard;114601

Once the US-spec CSi production was finished in 1996 there wasn´t any US spec car which received styling 21 throwing stars ex-factory. On a 1997 Ci they must have been purchased separately at some later stage and the person buying them skimped out on the 5th

Cheers
Reinhard

That's what happened with my 850...it came originally with turbines and then was later upgraded to style 5's, but the spare is still turbines. That reminds me...i gotta make sure the spare wheel in my CSi is correct.