1990 BMW E30 M3

“VilMMMa”

VIN#: AE34130

ENGINE 2.3-liter S14B23 four-cylinder

OUTPUT 192 hp @ 6750 rpm, 170 lb-ft @ 4750 rpm

TRANSMISSION 5-speed Getrag manual

CURB WEIGHT 2857 lbs.

TOP SPEED 141 mph

BUILD DATE: March 1990

COLOR  Diamond Black Metallic

OWNER  BMW Car Club of America Foundation

OWNED SINCE  2019

LOCATION Greer, South Carolina

On the surface, this car is nothing special. An American-market M3, 1990 model year, sold new in America. Diamond Black, black leather. Plus maybe too much yellow.

Mark Woolley is gone now, but if he heard those words, he’d laugh. Mark was my friend, he loved E30 M3s and the color yellow, and he didn’t care a metric whit that his taste wasn’t for everybody.

When Mark died unexpectedly in 2018, he had owned this M3 for 20 years. He was a North Carolinian by residence, a CAD trainer by trade, a track instructor by passion.

I was in college when I met him, around 25 years ago, at a track weekend in St. Louis. If I loved the guy immediately, it was because he was funny and kind and possessed of a lightly ridiculous wit. If that weren’t enough, he owned an E30 M3 and liked drinking beer in a paddock late at night while grumbling about how great cars should never be taken too seriously, even if you love them enough to give them names.

His E30’s name was VilMMMa, he told me. Three Ms, because of course.

Mark Woolley joined the BMW Car Club of America in 1988. Thirty years later, a group of friends and admirers took more than 20 E30s on a lap of Virginia International Raceway in his honor, then scattered some of his ashes there. The dotted line between those two moments intersects an awful lot of people and is as good a testament to an M3’s reason for being as you’ll get.

Kind, funny, and charming, Mark was one of the best unofficial ambassadors the Club has ever had. Like his favorite color or the M3 itself, Mark wasn’t for everyone. Who cares? He was for us, and that’s all that matters.

                                                                            —Sam Smith

Mark Woolley graciously bequeathed this car to the BMW CCA Foundation.
It resides in the museum’s collection as an ongoing celebration of his life.