Is this a maintenance monster?

I ran into this Dinan Turbo V12 850i BMW at the Somerville Car Cruise on a Friday Night quite a few years ago. Almost didn’t notice what was special about it?

Was never really the biggest BMW fan in the first place, however I can pick out things that don’t look stock on pretty much any vehicle. That being said the Twin Turbo setup on this 850i did bear the investigation.

Specs on this car are as follows-
1991 BMWi modified by Dinan Engineering
1 of 50 built and was built specifically for PGA Pro Mark Calcavecchia (sp?)
Stage II twin turbo V12 with Stage III suspension
525hp/584ft/lb tq
Featured in Car and Driver July 1993
Pricing [’91] $92,000 (car) + $24,995 (stage II twin turbo system) + $2,195 (stage III suspension) + $4,500 (wheels and tires)

So a BMW that I would normally not pay attention to caught my eye way back in 2008 because of the aftermarket twin turbo setup on a V12. Now years later I watched a show called “Wheeler Dealers” where they picked a BMW like this out to try to flip for more than they bought it for. They pointed out all the problems with this particular model BMW and there seem to be many.

Then you have to think about how many problems come with owning a V12 BMW (I was offered a 750L with a V12 for $750) and then on top of that a aftermarket twin turbo kit installed on the car to boot.

So makes you wonder how much money or how good a mechanic you must have to support a car like this! Looking at this car it would seem to not be a daily driver so that may make it slightly easier to justify owning it. However with the HP and Torque numbers it doesn’t seem like it would be slow in any way shape or form so I would definitely be driving it around taking Corvettes by surprise 🙂

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