Today is somewhat a milestone day for me, as it happens to be my 25th birthday. Now normally I’m not one to make much of my birthday, but turning 25 naturally has me reflecting back on my life a little more than previous birthday, with cars playing an important role throughout. A significant number, it means I’m halfway through my twenties to 30, it also means I’m halfway overall to 50. Twenty-five is generally the accepted age of being “fully adult” from both a legal and social perspective.
25 is also the age of this aptly-engined 1993 BMW 525i, a vehicle which for as many of those 25 as I can remember, I’ve had a profound love and desire for. It’s largely the vehicle I credit with igniting my passion for BMW with, something which is stronger than ever today. In honor of turning 25, there is no other vehicle I can think of to better sums up my lifelong passion for cars this past quarter century.
Especially in the past several years, I’ve been very fortunate to have had many thrilling automobile-related experiences from driving on the Autobahn, the opportunity to drive countless vehicles from beater trade-ins to $100,000+ exotics, getting to own cars I’ve dreamed about, and very importantly, writing here at CC. Vehicles themselves have come along way in the past 25 years, an who knows what the next 25 will look like. At least for the time being, us drivers still have the option to drive ourselves. Here’s to the next 25!
Photographed: Boston’s Seaport District, Boston, Massachusetts – March 2018
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Congratulations on reaching the end of the first trimester of your life! 🙂 Now you can finally rent a car in all fifty states as a responsible adult and check the box that says you are at least 25. You still won’t get what you reserved though…
These were quite handsome BMW’s. Early in my working life (hey, about 25 years ago!) I regularly rode with a friend that had a 525i in green. While not the most powerful thing as equipped it was certainly well constructed and had an exemplary ride for the roads of the Bay Area with a great sense of solidity as only a new German car could do at the time.
May you both enjoy the next 25 as much as the first. Mazel Tov!
Congratulations on reaching the end of the first trimester of your life!
So life has three 25 year trimesters? That gives me..ten years before I reach the end of my third trimester. Hmm. How about four quadmesters? 🙂
I had it figured at 27 per trimester for a long time but the life expectancy of the US male has sadly been going down over the last few years…My theory does allow for statistical outliers so you (might) be ok. Anyone that doesn’t make their full complement leaves extra for others. It’s a zero sum game.
That’s life expectancy at birth. For a 65 year old male, life expectancy is another twenty years. I hope to do better, but who knows? My mother is turning 95; my younger brother has terminal colon cancer.
Sorry to hear about your brother Paul.
I’m counting on 80. Anything past that is gravy. Anything before that, I’ll feel I’ve been cheated.
Unless life gets cut short in a motorcycle accident. At which point, it’s “natural causes”.
At least you’d go out doing what you loved. Better than falling off a ladder or something…
Jim, visit the University of Tennessee Knoxville Orthopaedic Surgical Floor with its weekly additions of “Tail of the Dragon” enthusiasts and you might think differently. Motorcycle accidents often times have unpleasant lifetime consequences, not just death. Just saying, a different point of view.
Thanks Jim!
And you’re absolutely right about rentals. Apart from Turo where reserving a specific car, I’ve never had an experience where the rental car is what was reserved 🙂
Brendan thanks for sharing some pics of one of my favorite BMW sedans. I’ve admired many BMW vehicles for a long time. Ownership came many years past my 25th birthday. We’ve had just two, 03 530i sedans. The first was written off after a collision a few years ago. It’s replacement was traded in after annoying and expensive mechanical gremlins. Sigh..
Stay healthy, be happy, work hard and avoid those who who live their lives under a dark cloud.
I’ve always been a fan of the E39 as well. A tad more conservative, but still iconic. Indeed they could get very finicky with their electronics’ long-term reliability.
And very wise words of advice. Avoiding or at least limiting my contact with negative people has made me a lot happier!
BMW’s Great Leap Forward. The first Bimmer in years not to look like the previous one. Desirable then, and now. Not a car for high-mileages, though, a BM weakness which, if the internet is to be believed, still exists. They just become unsensible to repair. My late-nineties 3 series certainly got to a point of being too expensive to justify at relatively low mileage.
Happy Birthday, and thank you for your work here. And an advice; you know how the last 25 years took 25 years? The next 25 take somewhere between 15 and 20. Minutes.
So make sure you don’t get there wondering “if”. Go and do it!
Likely the acceleration and compression of time and aging could have been described by Heisenberg as a “certainty principle” correlating with the quantum mass effects of dark matter and dark energy distorting the fabric of space-time ( see Einstein, Hawking, et al).
This effect increases with increasing age resulting in the ever present sensation of diminishing time inversely related to the continued relentless expansion of the universe. Herr Professor Justy Baum has described this metaphysical phenomenon aptly. Time seems to speed up as you age, amazingly accelerating with increasing age..
So enjoy every precious moment of your life’s experience. Work happily and joyfully to disprove the old adage that youth is wasted on the young.
Happy birthday, happy 25th, hopefully on your way to a very full, healthy, joyful, productive 100+.
No doubt you will outlive every BMW you drive, thankfully your build quality is inherently better than any BMW’s.
Cheers.
My theory is the perception of a timeframe relates to the percentage of your life it represents. To a toddler a week is almost unimaginable, to a young child it is a long time, but to an ‘older’ person it goes by in a blink.
That’s my theory too.
simply put:
Life is like a roll of toilet paper.
The closer you get to the end the faster it runs out.
Thank you!
Most European cars, notwithstanding their many strengths, unfortunately reach a point when too many things start to go wrong and they aren’t usually worth continual investment in.
And I can definitely see how the next years will seem to go by a lot quicker. I think the more structured and somewhat “following the expected path” of childhood through one’s early 20s has something to do with it. After that one is truly on their own in many more regards.
Happy birthday, Brendan! It has been quite a long time since I was 25 but my 3 kids are in your age-neighborhood so I am more plugged-into 25 than I might otherwise be at my age. You are in a great place now, just remember that good decisions now will pay many dividends down the road.
I have a hard time imagining a better car to highlight on your 25th birthday, given your deep roots with BMW. These were indeed appealing cars and it is nice to still see the occasional one out and about, if only in photos.
Thanks JP!
Happy 25!
Appropriate choice of model.
E34 is easily the best looking 5 Series ever.
I’ll have a M5 wagon please.
Thank you! Although I truly have liked each generation 5 Series in their own ways, the E34 has best walked the fine line of looking highly distinctive yet still holding up well over time. It was essentially the climactic evolution of BMW design for the previous two decades, before styling took a new direction.
Not to be a stickler on details, but the factual correct order of BMW 5-Series ‘best-lookingness’ is:
1. e12
2. e28
3. e39
4. e34
5. e60 but wagon and M5 only
6. the rest
*cough* e25
Happy Birthday Brendan
My personal preference is the E28…BMW started with wood trim and soft, tufted seats in the early 90s and I just prefer the boxy look, huge windows and austere interior trim of the older cars.
Happy birthday!
I almost had some pangs of regret when these first came out two years after my W124 300E. But as much as I like and respect them, it didn’t quite measure up to the W124. But it was a huge leap forward for BMW, given how old and out of date its predecessor was by then.
Thanks Paul!
I like the E34 and W124 each for their own virtues. If I could own one of each I’d be happy!
Owned one exactly like this many years ago. Bought at twelve years old, the electrics failed, the rubbers perished, the engine expired twice, and I was glad to send it to the scrapyard after six years of ownership. I remember the CEO of BMW in the late 90s boasting how “all BMW components are designed to be recycled”. What he failed to admit was that all BMW parts are bio-degradable too!
Never again. I’ll stick to my elderly Mercedes W124.
Happy Birthday! After reading your work for several years, I knew you were young … but it seems you’re the same age as our youngest. Thanks for skewing the average of CC way down, as well as providing that youthful perspective (you mean the Crown Vic wasn’t the peak of American car design?). As someone who is about halfway through that third trimester (and like Paul, I hope there are at least four) I’ll just say it gets better. You’re likely to have more time and money, and less expensive tastes. A good combination when the Internet allows to experience cars without having to actually own them.
Thank you! We’re very fortunate to have such a diverse group of writers here and I’m happy to help represent my demographic!
My best pal had a ’90 525 when he was a master’s student in roughly 2001. The heater core began leaking in the middle of the winter, and we parked it in my parents’ garage to replace it with the help of a manual.
I was 23 or 24 and had never worked on any foreign machinery, and I glanced through the manual, stopping right before the instruction to NOT remove the metal tubes under the dash leading to the heater core. Well, since the new core came with the tubes attached, I did the unthinkable and removed them. OMG. The entire dash of that car was torn apart for a day and a half while I figured out how to snake the new ones in. What a disaster.
In the ensuing 17 years or so, I hope I have learned a bit of patience, but I still wish I had a do-over for that project. In retrospect, the heat worked fine for the remainder of his ownership, but I wasn’t sad to see him trade the car in on a Mazda Protege.
Congrats- and thanks for the writeup. I’m also a fan of the E24. As mentioned, not the most powerful in the world, but solid, comfortable, and handsome. That car triggers memories of traversing Europe in a rented 525 with the wife and kids in the early 90’s. Other than the white-knuckled autobahn merging (Floor it honey! I am!), it was a fine companion.
Wait- there’s trimesters? Aw crud, now you’re making me feel old. This was new the year I was born. *Just growing older, not up
Thanks! And “growing older, not up” – I love it!
Happy birthday to you sir, best wishes for a happy and healthy 25 more !( and then some !)
Thank you!
Happy Birthday! 25 is a good age so enjoy it as much as you can. But keep in mind Justy Baum is right as the trip to 40 takes mere moments.
Your helping to lower the average age around here is a good thing as somebody has to have enthusiasm about minivans and the newer stuff that us old farts take for granted. You are very good about shedding new light on it.
And don’t take Jim Klein’s trimester comment seriously. Life isn’t a pregnancy. But it is pregnant with opportunities, so keep taking them!
As for this BMW, it’s nice to admire from a distance but I wouldn’t take on the care and feeding of one as expensive parts can quickly kill the lust-fest!
Thank you Jason! As I said to a previous comment, we’re very fortunate here to have such a diverse group of writers here representing many points of view, from an age perspective, location perspective, and many more!
Happy Birthday Brendan! Have a great one!!
Thanks George!
Happy birthday, Brendan!
Welllll…I donno. Legal, mostly, yeah, though you have to be 35, at least chronologically, to be President of the United States. Socially is a different and more complicated matter. For me, 30/29 was a much bigger and more conspicuous shift than 25/24; the world will put up with a great deal from a 20something that will not be tolerated from a 30something, but on the other hand a whole lot of bulk wrap cracked off and drifted away very suddenly on my turning 30, like a switch being flipped. I’d been hearing talk—sometimes pointed—about both those effects since I was about 25, but in the manner of a 25-year-old I dismissed it as stuff and nonsense. Nope, in my experience it all came true, just like they said. The other side of this coin: if I were to see my 20something self approaching, I’d dash across the street and duck into a shop or something to avoid him, because throwing him up against a wall and hollering “GROW THE EFF UP, YOU INSUFFERABLY MOUTHY, SELF-IMPRESSED, THOUGHTLESS LITTLE KNOWITALL PUKE!” wouldn’t work, and neither would any more diplomatic tactic.
My main point with this missive isn’t to throw any shade (on anyone except my 25-years-old past self), but rather to echo dman’s sentiment: it gets better. I made a better 30something than 20something—happier, more content, less unresolved crap to lug around, more thoughtful, a better listener, less quickmouthed—and my 40s so far are better still. But 25’s certainly got vim and vigour to recommend it!
Thanks Daniel! And believe me, I’m looking forward to the coming years and am excited to see where I am in 5 years!
Happy Birthday Brendan. I’m 50 so I can look halfway back, 25 was a good year. Living on my own, a little money in my pocket, bought my first motorcycle…
Good times. Have a great year, it goes faster than you think!
Thanks Doug!
Happy birthday Brendan!
Thanks!
Happy birthday Brendan!
Thanks for everything you do for the site!
Thanks CJC! Means a lot!
Happy Birthday Brendan!
Look forward to your next article.
Thanks Timothy! The one after the next one is a new COAL too!
Happy Birthday Brendan! My birthday is 17th April, maybe I’ll post something born the same year as myself.. I clearly remember the first time I saw this 5 series on the street, I was walking through the deserted city after work, on the way to the train station, and a white one was parked alone. I was taken with the bold maturity of the design, not a false note anywhere, a good vintage indeed!
Thanks you and happy early birthday to you! And I think that’s a great idea to post something on your birthday from the year you were born.
Happy birthday, Brendan! Hope it’s a great one.
Maybe you know the website Driven to Write, but if not, they just did a post on this car a few days ago.
https://driventowrite.com/2018/04/05/1988-bmw-e34-5-series-profile-history-review/
For those that don’t know the site, it’s not unlike CC, but from a European perspective. In fact, the writers give frequent shout-outs to CC.
Enjoy your day, Brendan!
Thanks for the reference.
I mention CC because it’s very good and has such a civil, knowledgeable
community.
Happy birthday Brendan!
Richard at DTW
Thanks I’ll have to take a look!
Best wishes, and hope the future brings you nothing but good times, car-related and otherwise.
Thank you!
Happy birthday, Brendan!
And you picked one helluva car. The e34 is awesome, even though it’s a bit underrated due to the fact that the e39 can out next (tbh, it was only from the ’00 MY onwards that the e39 started deserving the praise it got, at least in the styling field)
And btw, the car I drive is from ’93 too. An Audi 80 manual Diesel wagon.
Cheers
Thank you! And agreed. It’s funny how the E34 has been forgotten in many respects due to its successors.
Happy birthday, Brendan! An excellent tie-in.
Thanks again Joe! It’s a car that means a lot to me!
Brendan,
A happy birthday to you, my friend – and here’s to many more.
I will be up north again in August for my annual trip so I plan to stop into the dealership to say hello. I’ll likely have one of my 1989 Volvos with me this time.
Thanks PJ! And absolutely please do stop by! Maybe we’ll have time to take a quick spin in the Volvo too!
It would be cool if everyone posted a picture of the car they would most like to have from the year they were born. I don’t have a lot of great choices but here’s one I’d certainly love to have. 1979 Buick Electra Estate
Great idea! I think you just inspired a QOTD post!
Happy birthday Brendan.
Since we are still in the neighborhood of Easter, we’ll say you were the best Easter present your mum ever got!
So how does she feel having her baby boy get his first quarter century under his belt??
Thanks Bill! I like to think I was a good present 🙂
Mom went through a lot to have a baby and I like to think I lived up to her expectations. I’m very fortunate to have such a wonderful, loving mother. We’ve always been there for each other and I’m very thankful we are still so close.
Happy birthday, Brendan!
Intrestingly, when I was 25 I was driving a 94’525 E34 in black metallic, with white leather interior and a manual. Probably the best car Ive owned. That straight 6 was very smooth.
Thanks! And that’s awesome! I would kill for a car like that.
Nice choice of cars Brendan, I remember reading about a 1989 535is that sounded like it was a pretty impressive sports sedan, and from memory 2/3 the price of an M5 when it debuted later. My uncle had a pair of 5-series from this era too, starting with the 5-sp auto update (replacing a M-B 300E) that I have memories of some fairly rapid trips in. How he kept his license is a miracle – well, that is one term for it!
Happy Birthday, Brendan! You are wise beyond your years!
I’m more familiar with the E39 (my parents have a year 2002 525i, now driven by my sister in law and brother) but the E34 is quite nice, too.
Happy 25th Brendan! I too lamented my 25th…it was and has been the only birthday that played with my mind. 30-40-50-60(!) passed with little concern. For some odd reason my daughter turning 10 bothered me as well.
This might just be my experience, but the next several decades will just get better each year, although they do seem to fly by….
I’m 32 (will be 33 in August) and I have to say, 25 bothered me more than turning 30 did. At 25 it was that whole, “Holy crap, I’m not a kid anymore, can’t even pretend I am”
but at 30 I was just “meh, whatever.” It may have something to do that much of my 20’s sucked until my very late 20’s. Life’s much better now for me.