Introducing... The Unicorn
 

I've talked about this white '04 4.4 in the goodbye to Ole Blue. But I spent a few hours a day over the past week or so working on the paint. I have wanted to do this since we bought it in 2019 with only 33k miles. Now, with 66k miles and the Unicorn parts slowly making their way from ole Blue to The Unicorn, I am ready to make a formal introduction:

Our first week at the spa needed beautiful weather and an owner who could move more than 3hrs a day. :( But, we got it done. Paint corrected

Today, I ran around looking for powdercoat solutions for the StopTech six pot calipers that I took off of Ole Blue. In doing so, I realized that this was a good opportunity to rebuild the calipers. It's been a good long time and at least 100k in service. If I'm taking them apart (silver) to get them coated (red), I might as well rebuild them. :dunno:

Also today, the shop accepted the challenge to remove the StopTech rears on ole Blue for fitment onto the Unicorn. They'll ship the rear calipers off as well for powder coating. I'm a little jazzed.

But what do you guys think? I can choose from literally HUNDREDS of colors! Red just looks really good now. Any ideas? What would YOU do with ginormous six pots on the front? Orange? (no.. not orange. This is not a POS Maserati)

Color match them to the blue color of the roundels. Also, although the color is not the exact blue of OLe’BLUe, it would still give honor and remembrance to the OLe’ Beast!


E53 RiPPeR
XOuTPoST jUNkiE
ReVELaTiON 22:21

Red looks good but everybody uses red. I agree that bmw blue would look good or the ///M three colors


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Why get rid of the 4.8is? They won't make anymore of them and keeping a nice one on the road rather than buying a new cookie cutter suv is a much better choice.

I just feel that the BMW blue would accent nice with the soft gray of the wheels, and the white exterior. Plus they would be color coded to a BMW color as well. Win win in my opinion!


E53 RiPPeR
XOuTPoST jUNkiE
ReVELaTiON 22:21

Shoot, come to think of it… There is a third win. With a name like PropellerHead, it’s only fitting to use one of the colors from the Prop..! LoL.. ;)


E53 RiPPeR
XOuTPoST jUNkiE
ReVELaTiON 22:21

Sweet! What ya going to use on the black trim?

I like this idea a lot. :thumbup: Dropped The Unicorn off today to remove the OE rears that will go back on Blue. The rear StopTechs from Blue will go onto The Unicorn after powder coating. Since they have to be taken apart for powder coating, I am rebuilding each StopTech caliper with new seals and dust covers.

The Unicorn is slowly coming along. :yawn:

I still love the thing. And FWIW, the F25 is a soul-less toaster. I'm already making designs to give it to my daughter while I take her 128. :popcorn:

But alas, while Blue was in there, they did the estimate for N62 seals (2nd time), rear main seal, and two or three other leaks. It came out to $16k. The Toaster was $11k. :rofl:

The E53 makes my heart flutter. If I didn't have The Unicorn, I might keep it on the road. But I bought the white one in 2019 knowing that this day would come one day. When I had the chance to put the last known 4.8is bumpers on the front and rear, I did it. Now, The Unicorn has grown into a tribute of sorts. My friend who owned his own shop passed away in December. He was the guy who did most of the cool stuff to Ole Blue. So now, those parts are migrating over to White so they'll remind me of my friend who became a brother on a ride with 1/3 the miles.

Finally, another mechanic from the local dealer wants Ole Blue. He's in his 20's and will do some work shoring up the Toaster (F25) and the '88 E30 suspension. (shocks, springs, Ireland Engineering sways) His efforts will pay for Ole Blue. The kid gets Ole Blue and will maintain it. I will still get to go hear the V8 at the dealer when I want to. (It sounds so good) I'm in finals for a new job after looking for a couple years. I think it will be a pretty good commute. That's perfect either for a Toaster or 'Bamb1', the 128. :cool:

I think it will definitely look sweet! I am honored that you like the idea. You have some pretty awesome machines! I was a bit nervous giving suggestions to a rad dude with great taste such as you possess. LoL.. :rofl:


E53 RiPPeR
XOuTPoST jUNkiE
ReVELaTiON 22:21

Well. They didn't really have a Blue that was anymore a shout out to Ole Blue than anything else, so I went ahead with the old reliable. They look SWEET though!

Hey, preservation is king here. And they look like their preserving pretty well! :thumbup: Dang! Those are some nice brakes!


E53 RiPPeR
XOuTPoST jUNkiE
ReVELaTiON 22:21

The worst part about this wasn't the powdercoat wait. It was the wait for the seals and dust covers to rebuild the calipers! But, the wait was worth it! The Unicorn now has a full six pot front calipers and rear StopTech calipers in 'Fire Engine Red!'

I haven't looked at the box with the previous ones in it yet, but I did moved the front slotted over to The Unicorn in order to match the rear slotted. That kit will be available for sale when cleaned up with drilled rotors. :thumbup:

Apologies for the fairly shitty pics. I have just made the rather INSANE decision to move all of my desktop compute to Apple. That's a story for a different time. Server compute remains Intel silicon on xIX. Now let me try to fix the upload...

HERE we go:

https://xoutpost.com/attachment.php?...1&d=1745039029

And the fronts:
https://xoutpost.com/attachment.php?...1&d=1745039029

Annnd those rears:
https://xoutpost.com/attachment.php?...1&d=1745039029

The last swap from Ole Blue is the under ride which will be done next week. Next weekend, I match the rear windows to the OE fixed window tint as it would have come in the US with dual pane windows. After that, it's touch up a bumper scratch on the rear and some paint peel on the front 4.8is bumpers. Then, I am afraid, my 25yr love afair with 4 E53's will come to a close.

The Unicorn with

• small sunroof,
• dual pane windows,
• Euro aspheric, heated and dimming OE mirror glass
• running boards,
• underride protection,
• clean style 87's
• Black interior
• Dark Birch trim,
• heated steering wheel,
• Focal speakers in the doors,
• Euro clear headlights,
• Eibach sways,
• them bright ass StopTech rears and the front six pot rebuilt StopTech calipers and ceramic pads upfront,
• new seals and AGA water pipe,
• custom Zionsville aluminum radiator and expansion tank w/ electric fan(bullet proof BMW cooling!)

And just 67k miles...

Will be up for sale.

What do you guys think BAT will bring? :popcorn:

Maybe $9-$11k is my uninformed guess...Good Luck...

That's where my head is at as well. A little higher than I was thinking.