Remember when a BMW fan flew out to Europe to pick up his dream BMW E92 M3 in Atlantis Blue, only to find it painted in Atlantic Blue? The 2013 BMW M3 coupe and its light blue hue is up for grabs on Bring A Trailer and it’s already up to a mind-boggling price of $63,000.
M3Post user b-thumper posted a thread talking about the disaster of picking up his beloved M3 in the wrong color in 2013. In the thread, he explains how he spent years configuring his dream BMW M3, taking so long that he even missed the deadline to order an E90 M3. But it all eventually came together as b-thumper ordered an E92 M3 through the BMW Individual program.
It was supposed to be finished in a gorgeous Atlantis Blue and he was set to pick it up in Europe. While there, he was going to take his new car for a rip on Nürburgring. What better way to get acquainted with your new sportscar than to take it into the Green Hell?
Unfortunately, the car that b-thumper received was not the Atlantis Blue that he ordered, but Atlantic Blue.
An error at the factory meant that his personalized BMW Individual car was painted in the more common color.
B-thumper fought with BMW until the automaker eventually built a second M3 coupe, this time finished in the correct Atlantis Blue, below:
If you cannot tell the difference between the two colors, you’re not alone! At least in pictures, they look very similar. But Atlantis Blue is slightly darker in the flesh:
Funny enough, b-thumper only held on to the correctly colored car until 2019 when he put it up on Bring A Trailer. It sold for $66,500 with only 14,000 miles on its odometer.
The original Atlantic Blue car that was created through the factory error became a bit of a special car. BMW ended up shipping the Atlantic Blue M3 to the states, where someone bought it through BMW of Encinitas, California.
As the Bring A Trailer ad notes, it is the only BMW M3 Individual painted in Atlantic Blue due to the error. At $63,000 with two days of bidding to go, it’ll likely sell for more money than the replacement car did.
Aside from the color mix-up, this is a normal BMW M3 coupe. It has the Competition Package, which gives the car goodies like upgraded wheels and suspension. Under the hood is a 4.0-liter V8 making 414 horsepower and 295 lb-ft torque.
That power gets run through a six-speed manual transmission with a limited-slip differential. The car has all of 21,000 miles on its odometer, so it’s practically brand new.
B-thumper notes in the comments of the Bring a Trailer post that the seats in this car aren’t original as the seats installed from the factory eventually went into the Atlantis Blue replacement car.
The part that gets me about all of this is that because this car is technically one-of-one, it’s more special than the correct car that b-thumper eventually received. This car is worth the same or more than the correctly-built car; but that’s Bring A Trailer for you.
H/T – Opposite-Lock!
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