I’ve always been of the belief that it would be cool to pay a little bit of money to access a full OEM configurator of your car when it was new. See what the options look like, see what accessories are available, live out a bit of a fantasy. Sadly, configurators generally get updated yearly, meaning you won’t be able to play with some models again. Well, that’s usually the case. See, some absolute hero saved two old versions of the BMW accessories configurators, letting you digitally play with a variety of late-1990s, 2000s, and very early 2010s BMWs once again.
Granted, there are a few caveats here. Only two versions were saved, they don’t cover any of the M models or offer any of the Individual colors. Regardless, two Internet Archive users have recently uploaded versions 3.3 and 12 of the software, so if you can run Windows, you can have a bit of fun with visualizing long-discontinued options catalogs.
Let’s start with version 3.3, which I’m guessing is from about 2005 or so. New enough to contain the E90 3 Series sedan but old enough to predate the E92 3 Series coupe. Of course, since it carries some previous-generation models, that also means you get to play with models like the E39 5 Series.
Look, this 530i is like Matt’s own car, except with the M Tech aero kit and a set of Style 37 M Parallel 18-inch wheels. It’s a tasty yet fairly accessible spec for an enthusiast to build today, although perhaps only on the outside. See, when it came to the interior, I went a little bit nuts.
Ah yes, how about Stone Green leather and the rare “grid” interior trim with square dots on top of a galvanic finish? While we’re at it, let’s add an impractical metallic shift knob and handbrake, the factory navigation system, and a late M steering wheel to really send things over the top. It’s a slightly bold spec, but it goes well with the theory of having either a loud interior or a loud exterior.
[Ed note: Since sending this to me, I haven’t been able to get the “grid” interior out of my mind. I love it so much. – MH]
Speaking of loud, did you know that you could get an X5 with all sorts of goofy stuff on it? I’m not just talking about the over-the-top flares and notched side skirts that were part of the accessory aero package, I’m also talking about a front-mounted chrome nerf bar and driving lights attached to the roof rack. Yep, these are all real BMW accessories, and when the X3 launched, it was only natural for BMW’s accessory division to follow suit with the X5’s treatment.
How about that? You can see a little bit of where BMW’s M division got inspiration for the then-far-in-the-future X6 M’s front valence treatment. Needless to say, the X3 aerodynamic kit is exceptionally rare in the wild, but if you ever spot one, you’ll now know that it’s not some aftermarket job.
Oh, and speaking of rare accessories, Dakar Yellow Z3 on Style 38 tri-spokes with the aero kit and the speedster cover, anyone? I genuinely can’t say I’ve seen these wheels or that hard tonneau cover in the wild before, but the latter makes sense considering Porsche was doing it with the Boxster, and aftermarket companies were offering them for other convertibles.
There’s so much more fun to have in version 3.3, but let’s jump ahead to version 12 for the sake of leaving stuff to be discovered. I reckon this is likely from September 2011 or slightly earlier, given that it’s new enough to have the initial five-door variant of the second-generation 1 Series hatchback with some colors marked delayed availability, but old enough to predate the F30 3 Series. As soon as I booted this one up, I got to work on some forbidden fruit—a 335i wagon in Montego Blue. I ended up adding the BMW Performance body kit as I’ve always felt it’s better resolved than the LCI M Sport front bumper, along with the same split-spoke wheels seen on the 335is, xenon headlights, BMW Performance suspension and brakes, a sport exhaust system, and that’s about it on the outside.
Inside’s a bit of a different story, though, starting with the BMW Performance bucket seats. Those branded Recaros with side airbags were rare and pricey in their day, but they really do hold you in place. Complementing those chairs, the BMW Performance shift knob is a bit thicker than the popular ZHP knob from the BMW parts catalog, but I easily decided against the BMW Performance steering wheel because why have a noon marker on a street car? Otherwise, this thing gets the toys I want and not the toys I don’t. Dual-zone climate, heated seats, the smoker’s package to have a cover for the oddments tray and a convenient 12-volt socket, aluminum trim, aluminum pedals, and the Professional radio were added, iDrive was left out. Sweet.
On the other end of the spectrum of taste, I’m fairly sure there’s a rendering error on these stripes, but still, notice those roof fins, those likely unnecessary carbon winglets up front, and the sheer amount of over-the-top accessorizing going on with this X6. BMW really knew it’s target audience with this thing, and played to it with the accessory catalog.
Alright, let’s bring this thing home with something weird. Did you know that in certain markets, you could get an X1 with a gold cloth interior? Combined with especially zig-zaggy wood trim, it adds the right amount of color and texture to what is otherwise a fairly staid cabin, and it’s proof that cloth doesn’t get used nearly enough. So, what do you want to cook up with a virtual accessory catalog visualizer for most BMWs sold in the 2000s?
Top graphic credit: BMW
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I’m a little confused with the iMac in the opening graphic and then no reference to it in the article or any of the comments. But I’m easily confused.
I used to be a Mac guy, but switched to PCs back in the Windows 3.1 days. And I spent so much on an ’85 Fat Mac and then a 20 MB hard drive back in the late 80s. In ’80s dollars that are worth a lot more now. I had a C64 before the Mac, and it went away soon after I bought it.
Uhhh, it’s cute, makes a good title image, and was around during the broad swath of years listed for those configurators? No clue either.
You’d probably want to spin up a VM on modern hardware for these, not try to run them in something ancient.
But to each their own, and it’d be nice to have some 2000s era “fruit” colors back.
I installed our software at a lot of sites running VMware and it felt like magic that you could spin up so many machines, running on different operating systems, with no drama. Running on maybe one rack of a couple of EXSi servers and storage, versus like up to three full racks of hardware, just for the stuff I was installing, depending on the scale of the project. And the failover/redundancy features just worked. Remarkable.
Yup, VMware was awesome, until they decided to blow themselves up with their licensing. Virtual machines and VLANs have completely changed the game.
I’d say Proxmox is the new(er) hotness, especially in the homelab scene, but it also exists in production. If you’re a home user I would suggest playing with that, but you can always do Virtualbox or even Hyper-V, depending on your host system/OS.
It’s awesome how many tools are available to everyone!
I’m retired from installing and upgrading television newsroom systems. When I started this job, the backend servers (usually two pretty chunky bare metal boxes) ran on Linux. Originally on SCO Unix or Irix. And way before than on a very stripped-down version of Xenix. RHEL 4 simplified installations.
With VMware, a lot of sites that bought it (and enough processing power) would do almost everything in the building on a couple of high-availability
A little before I retired, RedHat killed CentOS because a lot of customers realized it the same thing except without a support contract. Our company elected to port the software over to Ubuntu LTS, which required a couple of months of learning Ubuntu at a pretty deep level and then doing the actual code rewriting, QA testing and subsequent revisions. And also training the deployment engineers in the field how to install Ubuntu. I decided I didn’t want to spend several months learning it only to retire a few months later as I had planned.
When Oracle decided to jack up the licensing on Java, on which most of other stuff we made was dependent, we recoded for OpenJava (now named OJ). It was a much lighter lift and almost invisible to field engineers and end-users.
I used to have three different PCs in my home office to test customer implementations before going on site to do the actual install. Remote access tools became robust enough to do most sites from home, and I asked that we start offering that but got push back from colleagues who liked to travel and customers who wanted a “hostage” in case things went sideways. Then Covid hit and that, like so much else, suddenly changed.
Oh dang, okay, so you can just run Ubuntu or Debian and KVM as an HV, haha.
I appreciate the detailed story, that’s a great little walkthrough! My only experience with IRIX was on the purple SGI machines, which were being used for computer animation, graphics, etc. But that feels like 17 lifetimes ago at least.
I feel you on the Covid changes. It’s absolutely amazing how many places were like “we absolutely cannot do this”, regardless of what data we brought to their attention but then Covid hits and all of a sudden those same places are saying “we need to do all these things like yesterday or we’re done”.
Real-life “lack of planning for one party becomes an emergency for another” right there.
That’s what they’re doing. I think. I’m not familiar with term HV unless you mean hypervisor. And we just run the Linux and our software as a VM. The rest of the system, clients, peripherals, 3rd party software just connected to the database to make changes but didn’t actually run on the Linux servers themselves.
The last IRIX job I did was an upgrade at a site in Canada that had two SGI O2s for the core database servers. Each had two hard drives and the OS and our software ran one and the database lived on the other. Our upgrade software required a newer version of the OS and so someone from SGI had to go onsite and nuke everything on the primary drive. Then I’d put our software on and license and configure it. Then I’d clear the now obsolete database and copy a fresh image over from the other server. Cut all the users over to the new version and repeat the process on the “old” software and then resynchronize the database with its partner. Pretty tedious. There’s a lot of watching paint dry time and the SGI was telling me and proud that the motherboard used in the Tomahawk missiles fired during the 2003 war in Iraq.
I had a buddy who did product/customer support who was not a fan of the O2s because they had a relatively high failure rate of motherboards. During the Iraqi War, it was reported that several hospitals were struck by “errant” Tomahawks. My buddy chuckled and said, “So that’s why we hit some hospitals.”
It appears to have been a diesel E90, based upon that redline. Common in Europe, but not here!
“iDrive was left out”
*jolts upright*
You can do that!? Sweet!
My favorite was my 2006 E90, RWD, 6-sp, sport options, no iDrive.
Between this and the VW Santana video, this place is a treasure trove of 90s/2000s retro throwbacks. I love it!
Love it! Weirdly enough, my E39s color (Artic Silver) isn’t there. Probably phased out by 2005. Also, the 523i and 528i which should be pre-facelift appear with the facelift bumpers and lights, so a bit of laziness from BMW’s part.
Cool. Now someone do the full 2004 Scion lineup!
Someone found some weird stuff in a bmw dealers closet.
Suddenly I wouldn’t mind a Z3 with three spoke wheels.
called getting old my man
It was bound to happen eventually, and I have been saving my pennies for a convertible, just not a BMW.
Miata is the answer?
Maybe for most people, Miatas are great, just not my style. I’m leaning towards an A3 Cabriolet Quattro, or maybe a TT. I have to uphold my reputation as the front wheel drive guy, you know. Haha
Solara Convertible!
Also not a bad option, albeit maybe not as easy to find as an MQB based Audi.
That’s great and all, but I just want that old iMac G3 lol (Preferably in Blueberry)
I’d check marketplace and moving sales. Blueberry was the most popular color. Schools threw them away or just said take them many teachers got them and are probably sitting in their garages gathering dust. I had several years ago from teacher friends and gave them to kids.
I agree. Love it or hate it but when the iMac G3 was released in all its fruitastic colors it made one hell of a visual statement (Adrian clenches fist and punches into his palm beat down style) on myself and many designers. It opened the world of color for designers or the Frutiger Aero aesthetic that Torch wrote about.
Oh, I completely agree! I used to own a Blueberry iBook G3 a million years ago. I would totally buy another one and use that instead of my current 16″ MBP if I could get a modern OS installed on the G3 haha (A milliion bonus points if someone figures out a way to shoehorn a M*-series SOC into that iBook G3 chassis)
Toilet lid iBooks were amazing. You could close them, toss them across the room, open them, and they’d be totally fine.
They’d run OS X, but the screen resolution made it a pretty crummy experience.
“I love that gold wood trim” is not a thing I was expecting to type today, but here we are.
I wish someone saved the old PT Cruiser one with the not really available options like panel model and flames and such.
I’ve always loved configurators. It blew my mind once they finally became 3D rotatable things instead of just stock photos in a glorified MS Paint project.
But the old configurators bring up fond memories of using Flash MX to create garbage for Newgrounds.
Ah, the lawless days of the internet, before we all started rotating between a few default sites.