If you're ever in Princeton, NJ and in need of dental work, we might suggest stopping by the office of Eddie Farcon. After all, the dentist is the owner of this BMW 325is, and if the relentless pursuit of perfection shown in this carbon and steel masterpiece is any indication of Eddie's work ethic, you can rest easy that each tooth filling will be a work of art.
This candy red, carbon fiber, widebody monster may look familiar to readers - it's graced these pages before (et 12/04). Yet the car's constant state of flux means there's always something new to check out. So when Eddie and the crew from New Image Motorsports made the extraordinary trek to Hot Import Nights in LA, we simply had to shoot the car again.
While Eddie probably warns his patients about the danger of too much candy, it's clear he can't get enough himself. The first and most obvious change since it last appeared in et is the addition of more Candy Apple red paint on the carbon fiber widebody. It's a slightly less aggressive design than previously: "I still wanted to show the carbon weave, but now most people on the scene know the car is carbon, I decided to throw more red on it. It looks a little more conservative now, a little more DTM," Eddie suggested.
Not even the wheels or tail lights could escape. Both the lamps, and the wheel lips on the 19" HRE 546R wheels received their own coating of House of Kolors Candy Apple red, to glorious effect.
The paint, however, is not the only external change. In order to switch things up, a custom metal hood was created. "I had a carbon hood before but decided to go with an OEM factory hood. Then we cut out the center section, dropped it down and rewelded everything back. There's no fiberglass in it and there's nothing else like it," Eddie said. "It's vented, and the vents are still in metal. It's subtle but unique and that's what I like about it," he added.
Moving closer, your eyes catch quite possibly the most perfect seats ever sourced from a production car. "The seats are factory Porsche GT3 Optional racing seats, and the backs were painted candy to match the car. Rui at Azevedo Motorsports made custom brackets and sliders so they'd fit in the E36," Eddie said. "They fit like a glove."
A set of 3" Sparco harnesses with center-lock release are anchored to the new rollcage, which has also been dipped in candy paint. Like the seats, the crew at Azevedo had some work to do before the new cage could squeeze into the E36."We ordered an eight-point Autopower bolt-in cage, but found it was designed for a gutted racecar. I didn't want to give up my interior to fit it, so we ended up cutting the cage into pieces and re-welding to get it in. Now it stands as a four-point rollcage, but it was custom-made to go around the headliner, and around the seats," Eddie stated.
The race theme continued with new electronics. A Stack Race Dash Display was installed, which is something you're more likely to see in a GT car at Le Mans than a street car from New Jersey. "All it shows is an analog tachometer, but everything else along the bottom is digital readouts. All the vitals, pretty much anything you want, can be programmed into it," he mentioned."Rui wired everything and did it so it looks factory in the instrument binnacle."
A carbon fiber dash overlay was sourced from Germany and candied in the rich red paint. Eddie is so pleased with the results he may replace the entire dashboard with a carbon fiber unit. "There's a guy in Canada who's supposedly making one now, so I can replace the dash in carbon, but that probably won't happen until the winter because of all the electronics and everything," Eddie said.
The final touch on the interior was having F1 Motoring cover everything in black leather and suede. Red highlights now accent the seats, door panels and trunk.
The majority of the mechanicals remain the same, with the fully-built 3.0 M3 straight-six force-fed by an Azevedo GT30 turbo and controlled by TEC-3 engine management. As it sits, the 3.0 cranks out 423whp, but Eddie might shoot for more once the show season ends. "It's running 16psi but we'll probably run at 22 or 24 over the winter. I just don't want to risk anything now since I have a couple more shows to attend... but this motor's held up pretty well, so I'm gonna push it a little more," Eddie said. "It should be good for nearly 600."
Brakes are custom Brembo units, measuring a huge 15.7" front and 13" in the rear - more than enough to stop the BMW in a heartbeat.
A wide range of electronics keep Eddie both entertained and informed, with cameras mounted front and rear, and dedicated monitors flushed into the glovebox. Alpine, MB Quart and Kicker components provide a crystal-clear soundtrack, should Eddie ever tire of the turbo engine.
After traveling 3000 miles to HIN LA for the first time, Eddie was rewarded with 'Best BMW' at the show, something he's particularly pleased with. "We got the car out there finally. I've been trying to do it for years, and finally did it. I knew it was coming to the end of its term as a show car, so if I was going to do it, it had to be now," he enthused. Eddie's team, New Image Motorsports, was rewarded with second place team at HIN as well.
With the car ranked number one in the NCCA rankings, Eddie's hoping to go out of the 2006 season on top, which may sadly be the end of the line for this show-stopping BMW. "At the end of the season I'm probably going to semi-retire the car," Eddie said. We shall see if it will ever be fully retired, but the car will always remain in Farcon's garage."I thought about selling it but it's been through so much, and there's so many memories in that car, I think I'm just gonna keep it," he added.
Just like a patient who eats too much candy, Eddie's always coming back for more work, and something tells us we haven't seen the last of this custom carbon creation.