We have had our Z3 around 15 years now and enjoyed many road trips around Europe. During this time there has only been one failure, an exhaust cam shaft sensor had to be replaced. There is 115,000 miles on the clock now and the engine still runs sweet.

The car was first registered in 2001, so 24 years old, and sadly it is not looking its best. In fact it is quite rusty, corroded with poor paintwork and various bits of trim coming apart. The leather interior is looking very worn and the plastic panel in the rear of the hood has gone brittle and cracked. I patched it up but rain still got in and the whole of the passenger area was soaked.

What to do. I could sell it for a few hundred quid. Someone would probably run it into the ground and it would end its days in a crusher. Or it would be broken up and used as a basis for a kit car maybe.

Or I could restore it to nearly new condition and save it from the knackers yard. I'm about done with my kit car builds so I have time and workshop space. I have a rough figure of £12,000 as a budget and probably a two/three year time span. I did think about fitting body panels from someone like Classic Coachworks giving it a '60s Italian sports car vibe. But after a few discussions with folk, I think I'll be refitting the original restored body panels. I'd still like to alter the interior though - smiths instruments, wood rim steering wheel sort of thing but we'll see.

Meanwhile we still need a fun car so I have temporarily bought a Porsche Boxster - which I have to say is quite an upgrade on the Z3, so which one do we keep when the Z3 is back on the road?

Anyway, here we are in the workshop ready to start the strippage:

The aim is to completely restore all parts of the car so it will look as close to brand new as I can get it. But also we'll protect it for the future by powder coating or painting all the parts that have thus far suffered rust and corrosion