It's a good thing you guys aren't car designers for any of the major auto manufacturers, we'd all be driving Model T Fords...lol! First of all, you have to take the emotional attachment out of the question, second, no one in their right/unbiased mind would call an E53 timeless. Timeless is not a word to be thrown around, timeless refers to cars like Porsche, Corvette, Jaguar, Ferrari or Mustang, just to name a few. I don't consider the E53 a timeless design, that's a bit of a stretch, I don't think you'll find an E53 in any car museums, unless it's owned by BMW. The E53 is just like any other massed produced SUV, now is it more fun to drive than others, absolutely, but timeless it ain't. That's why most of them will end up in the salvage yard when they have no apparent physical damage, the parts are worth more than the car. So your $50-$70K E53 (when new) is now worth only about $7-$8k, how do I know this you ask, I have a little over 10 years in the auto business, I do it now part-time. When we get an E53 in on trade we don't even think about keeping it for our used car lot, too many miles and they usually need too much work done, off they go to the wholesalers. And as for the technology inside, todays new cars and trucks simply smoke the E53, the E53 is like a Commodore C64 computer, no comparison.

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2002 X5 4.6is
1999 C5 Corvette
1992 Mitsubishi 3000GT VR-4
1994 Kawasaki ZX-9R
2005 Mazda 6 Wagon (Wife's)
1991 Mitsubishi 3000GT VR-4