BMW 318i E36- Angel Eyes

[MPWR]

This is Hasegawa's 318i kit. I built it mostly out of the box, but added LED lit "Angel Eyes" headlight halos. I love the E36 (have two of them), and it was terrific fun doing a build of a car I am very familiar with!



Truthfully this one has been pretty well done for a few weeks now. But we had an epic blizzard here this weekend, and that's given me the chance to play with the camera and post some pics.



I started this build probably about 18yrs ago, and it has been kicking around my stash in limbo since then. A year or so ago I decided that it would be fun to try doing illuminated headlight halos, and this seemed an obvious build to do it with. E36s were never built with these from the factory- but it was a popular aftermarket option by the late 90's. A few years later BMW adopted it on the E39 5 series, and has recently been building nearly every car they make with them.



The headlights are machined from optical acrylic rod, and illuminated from below by LEDs. The healight reflectors are turned from aluminum. (I will have pics of the parts soon in the build thread.) The halos are fairly difficult to photograph well, but they look terrific in the display case. They added A LOT of complication and effort to this build, but I learned a lot doing it.



The paint is solid black from my ever diminishing supply of CobraColors. The rear windows are tinted with Hasegawa tint film, to hide an otherwise odd looking rear seat bench. A big thank you to BVC500 for critical help with decals and tint film!!

Old school E36 4cyl coolness.



Thanks for looking!

[corvettekid_7684]

Very cool!

[88Porsche944]

Andy,

Looks Great.

Trevor

[lovegt40]

nice ones. U really make me wanna build my cabrio...

[Niro750]

Great work and brilliant job on the lights mate, love it

[nugundam93]

great work, especially with the angel eyes.

[DasWiesel]

Nicely done those angel eyes! Is the rear illuminated, too?

[MPWR]

Thanks guys!

Originally Posted by DasWiesel

Is the rear illuminated, too?

No!

One of the reasons I wanted to do angel eyes on my first lighted build is that it is a stand alone feature. The angel eyes come on independent of everything else- headlights, tail lights, parking lights, instrument lights, etc. It honestly was enough effort and fun on its own.

[BVC500]

Andy, it turned out great! The angel eyes is a cool feature. Glad I could help with the decals/tint.

[360spider]

Wow, Andy finished a model. Only took him 18 years. Great turnaround mate.
Just busting your chops!

Looks great, terrific feature. I was shopping for a daily driver last few weeks, and was seriously considering a 99 E36 M3 Coupe. What a great car. Couldn't find one in good enough shape to be reliable DD for hte budget I had, so ended up getting an E46 M3 Coupe, a great car in its own right.

Anyway, great build, hopefully will see some more sooner than 2034!

[Jaymes]

awesome! that looks very realistic and the angel eyes are a nice touch

[nascar49]

Very nice work , very cool with the LED's

[circuitR]

Nicely done and the angel eyes look awesome!