Wanderlust

Tag: MY2013

  • Color Check: Audi exclusive Nogaro Blue RS 4 Avant Spied in Ingolstadt Parking Lot

    Color Check: Audi exclusive Nogaro Blue RS 4 Avant Spied in Ingolstadt Parking Lot

    Say you’re driving down the road in Audi’s hometown of Ingolstadt, Germany and you see a Nogaro Blue Audi RS 4 Avant. Do you pull a U-turn and go back, shooting plenty of photos of the car? If so, you might be a tailored car geek. We know we are.

    Just a block away from the Audi Forum Ingolstadt back when this B8-era RS 4 was a new car, we ran across this particular Avant in the parking lot of a supplier. Parked just yards from a main thoroughfare, it sat rather unassumingly behind several other parked new Audi models of much less interesting specification.

    Longtime Audi fans will immediately recognize the color – Nogaro Blue. The hue is a nearly primary blue with pearlescent effect introduced on the RS2 Avant in the 1990s and more widely utilized on cars like the B5 and B6 S4 sedans. It was retired at the beginning of the B7 era, then returned with the B8s.

    Seeing a car like the RS 4 Avant in Nogaro Blue brings back a lot of memories. Apparently that wasn’t lost on whomever spec’ed the car as it also featured matching blue Alcantara seating segmentation and color-matched blue dash trim as well. 

    Unfortunately, you won’t see any shots of the interior in our photo gallery. This may well have been a privately owned car by a local Audi executive and as such I avoided going full paparazzi by taking shots of the interior. That said, I shot plenty of photos of the car’s exterior as it was parked in a public space. More images can be found in our associated photo gallery below.

  • Market Find: BMW Atlantis Blue Metallic M3 Coupe

    Market Find: BMW Atlantis Blue Metallic M3 Coupe

    What: 2013 BMW M3 Coupe
    Color: BMW Individual Atlantis Blue Metallic ((atlantisblau; metallic uni; 399; BMW)
    VIN:  WBSKG9C56DJ594778
    Mileage: 37,600 miles
    Price: $92,500
    CarFax: Link
    Window Sticker: N/A
    Location: Scottsdale, AZ
    Listing: Hubbard Auto Center

    Initially built by the obsessive minds at IND Distribution, this BMW Individual Atlantis Blue Metallic M3 has just about everything you can do to an E9X M3. The subject of more than a few blog posts (like this one), both the history and modifications to this Tailored Driver are well documented. Perhaps it should not be a shock then, that even with a minor on the CarFax the asking price can be described as having a significant bump due in part to notoriety. So while this is in no uncertain terms the most expensive dual-hump DCT E9X for sale, whoever writes this check will also find themselves in one of the most sorted examples ever built.

  • Market Find: “Nimbus Green” Audi TT RS Final Edition

    Market Find: “Nimbus Green” Audi TT RS Final Edition

    What: 2013 Audi TT RS Final Edition
    Color: Nimbus Grey Green (unknown)
    VIN: TRUB3AFK3D1901450
    Mileage: 76,348 Miles
    Price: $37,995
    CarFax: Link
    Window Sticker: N/A
    Location: Private Collection Motors, Costa Mesa, CA
    Listing: Link

    There’s a funny thing about the 2013 TT RS Final Edition. It was supposed to be Nimbus Grey, the same color that adorned the original Audi TTS concept and was a staple in the early years of the TT. As the folks at Audi prepared to sunset the Mk2 Audi TT RS, they planned a limited run of 30 cars in the same specification.

    Said specification was intended as something that would speak to TT enthusiasts. In addition to Nimbus Grey paint, it got black leather with red leather accents, sport exhaust, titanium-finished 19-inch “rotor” design wheels, heated seats and Technology Package that included adaptive xenon headlights and 12-speaker BOSE audio. That was all well and good, but when the TT RS Final Editions started showing up, you couldn’t miss the obvious. They weren’t grey at all. In fact, they were green. In person, they look like Nimbus Grey if you tinted it with a green more on the cyan side of the green spectrum.

    It’s funny, when you see these cars listed they are often listed consistently with their window stickers, like this example on Bring a Trailer listed as Nimbus Grey. Park it next to a real Nimbus Grey car though and the difference is immediately obvious.

    Whether that makes these cars more or less desirable is of course in the eye of the beholder. Regardless, this one appears to be a well preserved example with decently low miles.

  • Market Find: BMW Individual E92 M3 in E46-era Phoenix Yellow

    Market Find: BMW Individual E92 M3 in E46-era Phoenix Yellow

    What: 2013 BMW M3 Coupé
    Color: Phoenix Yellow (phönixgelb; metallic; 445; BMW)
    VIN: WBSKG9C58DJ594555
    Mileage: 93,000 miles
    Estimate: $56,000
    AutoCheck Report: Link
    Window Sticker: N/A
    Location: Private Seller, Moreno Valley, CA
    Listing: Link

    Why we love it:

    Heritage or iconic brand colors are always a solid choice when it comes to a tailored specification, so an E92-generation BMW M3 Coupé in Phoenix Yellow Metallic of the E46 M3 generation just makes a lot of sense. Now pair it with a 6-speed manual transmission and Fox Red Extended Novillo leather and you have an exceptional specification.

    Here’s what we know, via the owner’s listing on AutoTrader.

    “This 2013 BMW M3 Coupe is 1/2 Individual Phoenix Yellow e9X models produced for the US market. This M3 is a 6-Speed manual, the interior features Fox Red Extended Novillo Leather. It is 1/1 as a combo of Phoenix/Fox/Manual Transmission. It is a one owner car which I ordered through Steve Thomas BMW in Camarillo, CA received May 2013. (Carfax will say 2 owners but it was just refinanced through my bank, all one owner.) The odometer currently reads 93k miles, this car is in excellent condition for the mileage. The car is very well maintained and cared for, the look and drivability of the car don’t reflect the mileage. This car has never been tracked. This is a very rare and special opportunity for the right collector. 

    “The front bumper and side rockers look brand new and were just repainted in March 2024 by a Spectrum Collision(BMW certified paint center). Standard and selected features are Dynamic Damper Control, Heated Seats, Carbon Leather Trim, Navigation System, 19 359 style wheels, RD Sport Suspension Springs, Turner Motorsport Aluminum Undershield Kit, Carbon Fiber Rear Spoiler. The car features Shadowline trim and adaptive xenon headlights, rain-sensing wipers, and many more standard features. Brand new stock steering wheel installed March 2024. It comes with the original Phoenix Yellow stock spoiler, stock suspension springs and any other original small parts on the side. All service records, the window sticker and 2 keys included. Car comes with clear California Title, currently in hand of the owner. It’s a been kept under careful care by a BMW enthusiasts, all preventative maintenance and parts replaced as soon as the car showed any read outs. All service done under warranty at Irvine or Crevier BMW, all service after warranty done at MRF Engineering.

    “Important maintenance info can be provided upon request, it wont fit here.

    “The car shows very minor rock chips/wear on the roof, spoiler and hood, appropriate for some milage but prob less than expected.“

    Worth noting, this isn’t the first time we’ve featured this car. It was listed on AutoTrader before, likely by the same (original) owner. This time around, there are more details and better photos, so we’re making sure to share it again.

  • Market Find: 2013 Audi exclusive Papaya Orange Q5 hyrbid

    Market Find: 2013 Audi exclusive Papaya Orange Q5 hyrbid

    What: 2013 Audi Q5 hybrid
    Color: Audi exclusive Papaya Orange (non-metallic UNI; LY2B; Audi)
    VIN: WA1C8BFP2DA042301
    Mileage: 247,000
    Price at Time of this Writing: $2,000
    CarFax: N/A
    Window Sticker: N/A
    Location: Hampstead, NC
    Marketplace listing: Link

    Why we love it:

    Those memes about sending each other Facebook Marketplace listings of equal parts poor and awesome decisions at 1AM? That’s this Tailored Driver in a nut shell. Entering our radar over the weekend, this Audi exclusive Papaya Orange Q5 hybrid is the kind of thing fever dreams are made of- super rare color, weird options (tan interior and no sunroof?), and ‘needs work’ giving little context to why the price is so low. We’ve reached out to the seller, but apart from an also-ran feature on German Cars for Sale Blog back in the day, details on this Q5 hybrid are slim. Since it already seems to need a new motor, we hope whoever snags this drops in something wild, swaps out the tan interior for Black SQ5 bits, and swings for the fences.

  • Market Find: 2013 BMW Individual Santorini Blue M3 Competition Package

    Market Find: 2013 BMW Individual Santorini Blue M3 Competition Package

    What: 2013 BMW M3 Competition
    Color: Individual Santorini Blue (santorinblauii; non-metallic uni; 327; BMW)
    VIN: WBSKG9C5XDJ594007
    Mileage: 18,164
    Price at Time of this Writing: Auction
    CarFax: Link
    Window Sticker: Pictured below
    Location: Leander, TX
    Auction Listing: Link

    Why we love it:

    On the Tailored Driver spectrum, there are simply so many variants of Blue that the best way to describe on is quite possibly to reference others. Case in point, BMW Individual Santorini Blue featured in this instance on an E92 M3, exists somewhere between BMW’s Laguna Seca Blue and Porsche’s Voodoo Blue. A bright, bold, non-metallic Blue that is far from shy in our opinion represents an incredibly fitting shade for an M3 competition package car, and this is only further bolstered by Santorini’s similarity to the light blue featured within BMW’s roundel branding. Moving inside, this Tailored Driver also features extended leather with deviated stitching in Tobago Blue, which provides an incredibly subtle tie to the bold blue exterior.

  • Market Find: BMW Individual Frozen Blue Metallic M3 Coupe

    Market Find: BMW Individual Frozen Blue Metallic M3 Coupe

    A few years after Ken Block flipped the automotive world on its collective head with his matte black Mercedes CLS, it became quite clear that some folks in Munich were big fans. BMW went on to release more than a few “Frozen” editions during the E90-generation, and this Market Find counts itself among them. In 2013, BMW brought a reported 150 of these to the US, and 72 of them were painted in their Individual Frozen Blue Metallic (frozenblau; metallic matte; K5J; BMW) color.

    Having covered approximately 50,000 miles since new, this BMW Individual Frozen Blue Metallic M3 (VIN: WBSKG9C55DJ594559) retains the matte finish that made it special- a clear indication that this car was well cared for, at least aesthetically. You see, Frozen paint requires a more complex operation when washing as to not ‘dull’ the matte and turn it back to a more traditional glossy finish.

    This BMW Individual Frozen Blue Metallic M3 Coupe is currently on offer at Scottsdale, Arizona’s Proper Performance Motors at an asking price of $51,995. When looking at the current state of a softening overall market, we feel this still represents a solid value, with scarcity more than making up for the approximately +20% premium.

    See more details about this Tailored Driver, here.