Rare Brass BMW E46 M3 For Sale In Sydney, Is $74,990 Worth It?

Scroll through the E46 M3 listings on any given weekend and you’ll see the same colours on repeat. Titanium Silver, Carbon Black, Interlagos Blue if you’re lucky, and the odd Phoenix Yellow that’s been baking in a Penrith driveway since the Howard government.

This one is different. Listed on Carsales by a dealer in Kingsgrove in Sydney’s south, it’s a 2004 E46 M3 Coupe finished in BMW Individual Messing Metallic. Messing is German for brass, and in the photos it’s roughly the colour of a well-loved trumpet.

The dealer claims it’s one of just 22 right-hand-drive E46 M3s painted this shade. We couldn’t independently verify that number, and BMW has never published Individual paint figures in any useful way. What enthusiasts do agree on is that E46 rarity only really begins once you get into the Individual palette.

For context, owners on UK forum M3 Cutters put Oxford Green, the rarest of the standard colours, at 76 right-hand-drive coupes. The most famous Individual special, the UK-only Silverstone edition, ran to just 50 cars plus a pilot car according to the BMW M Registry. Messing sits in that kind of company.

Inside, the brass is paired with light leather and light wood trim. Wood in an M3 is a brave call, and a very 2004 one, but it suits the paint perfectly.

The asking price is $74,990 plus on-road costs. Earlier versions of the listing had it at $79,990, so the seller has already come down $5,000, but it’s still a lot of money for an M3 with an SMG gearbox and 155,000km on the odometer.

Recorded auction sales of E46 M3 Coupes in Australia average just under $45,000 according to AutoMarkets, with the highest at $76,500. That average has more than doubled in the past 12 months.

A supercharged 2004 auto with 57,000km went under the hammer for $67,000 in August, and a manual-converted 2002 sold for $61,000 in February. Live listings tell a similar story, with another 2004 SMG coupe at a NSW dealer asking $59,990 with 134,000km, and a private seller wanting $79,990 for one showing just 62,000km.

So this car sits at the very top of the market, and the paperwork is what has to justify it.

The S54 3.2-litre straight six is one of the great naturally aspirated engines, revving to 8,000rpm and paired with hydraulic steering that makes every new M3 feel a little numb by comparison. With BMW now plotting an electric M3 alongside the petrol one, cars like this aren’t getting any less special.

The S54 also comes with a list of well-known weak points capable of turning a weekend toy into a second mortgage. Most of that list has been dealt with on this car by a well-known Sydney BMW M specialist.

The rod bearings have been replaced with ACL shells and new rod bolts, which matters because a spun bearing on an S54 generally means a new engine. The VANOS unit has been swapped for a refurbished one with new hub bolts, and the timing chain and guides are new.

The rear subframe and floor repair, the other great E46 M3 horror story, is listed as completed. On top of that there’s a rebuilt diff, rebuilt CV shafts, tailshaft work, power steering work, a new headliner and fresh front brakes.

The dealer tallies it at more than $30,000, which sounds about right to anyone who’s had an M specialist’s invoice land in their inbox.

Then there’s the gearbox. SMG II is the transmission purists love to hate, jerky at parking speeds and notorious for pump failures that aren’t cheap to fix. This car’s pump has been rebuilt and the box bled and re-adapted, which takes the scariest bill off the table, but it’s still an SMG and some buyers will never get past that.

Would we buy it? If you want the cheapest way into an E46 M3, no, because there are manual cars in forgettable colours going for around half the money.

If you want the one nobody else at Cars and Coffee has, and you’d rather pay for someone else’s $30,000 of pain than live through it yourself, it makes more sense than most. Before any money changes hands, get an independent pre-purchase inspection, decode the VIN to confirm the Individual paint code, and ask to see the subframe repair with your own eyes.

We’ve got form here, having lost our minds over a Series 1 Datsun 240Z in Yowie Bay and, more recently, an Alpina B3 GT Touring. This brass M3 is right up there with both.

You can find it on Carsales now.