RHD 540it Owner Registry/Call Out

[mateo8]

Hello everyone, I know the lusted after e39 wagon is the '03 M-Sport. But I recently I have been researching the total production numbers for RHD 540 touring and have come across speculations of 22-300ish being produced worldwide, but there is no concrete numbers on total production. The ultimate rare car is one from England rn, its a RHD '03 540i M-sport edition (listed at $33k). But that is the only other 540it in RHD that I can find currently for sale, I have checked Australian and Japanese markets for them. I don't know if my search is limited by my location (USA) or the fact there are no other examples for sale right now. I know DennisCooper has a fantastic example of one, but other than that I don't know of anyone else who has one. Please if you have one or know someone who has one, submit a picture of it being a stock RHD 540it so we can start a registry and see how rare these cars really are.
RHD_wagon_interior_view.jpgGPTempDownload 9 copy.jpgwagon_on_mpars.jpg
Mine is a 2000 (imported as a diplomatic vehicle in '05) in glacier green with 232k miles on the clock. VIN: WBADR62020BX98168

[RosieE39]

Dennis Cooper owns an ex-police 530d Touring.

Australia never got 540i’s in Touring form - only 528i’s and then 530i’s (And all Australian spec E39’s except M5’s are Auto)

There may potentially be a couple in New Zealand and some in South Africa, but the RHD markets are tiny compared to LHD (where Germany and USA account for approximately 90% of BMW’s worldwide sales)

If you haven’t already seen it - this thread mentions numbers of 540i/6 Touring’s in the UK (which was the biggest market):-
https://forum.bmw5.co.uk/topic/13455...omment-1445132

[DennisCooper]

Hi Mateo,

I wish mine was a 540i ! As Rosie mentions above, mine is a 530 Diesel, if the coppers here were using 540i's as Patrol vehicles, everyone would've been hunting them down once 'retired' at3 years old! The Police maintain their vehicles regardless of cost and change everything mechanically if there's so much as a hint of wear or issue - one shock looks a ibit bad, they'll change the axle pair, one bushing a bit worn, change the lot and so forth.

The UK market was also tiny for 540i's, petrol is expensive and once the E39 began to age, the pool of ordinary motorists looking to run a 4.4 litre V8 was very very small. The expensive example you've seen listed I think is at one of the UK's handful of 'top end' dealers who do get awesome examples but then overprice them by double/triple/quadruple of their realistic selling price in the hope someone somewhere will want to pay the big amount. Hence, a lot of the cars hang around for months and years unsold. The same happens at more realistic levels but every now and again a sensible priced 540i comes up and gets sold quite quickly. The manual versions are very rare and many will ask big amounts for good examples when they come up. Many end up unsold at various listing attempts and then seem to stop being advertised after a couple of price drops. I do know of one example, and I drop the owner an email every 6 months or so to see if he wants to sell - facelift, Imola, manual, Sport, 175K miles last time I asked. Hopefully when he does say it's time to move it on I can get it at a decent price. If he asks big money for it, I'll not be buying it!

I don't think you'll get much in the way of making a good registry though, although numbers are very small, there's only a relative few who are on forums/social media, I suspect a good proportion of owners don't realise they have a sought after 540i, the guy with the IR above being one. There's a handful of owners who are on the UK's E39 facebook groups and then theres various listings of cars for sale and they vary from decent examples to total snotters with silly asking prices. Given how some of the adverts are written, you just know they're unloved examples requiring lots of work.

Cheers, Dennis!