The 1 of 1 M3 that changed the sedan game forever. Dakar Yellow “No Budget” build. Where is it now?
If you’ve ever searched “BMW M3” on Google, there’s a 99% chance this car has shown up under images over the last decade.
If you’re not familiar with MisterFelixDaCat aka “PowerBeast”, this is your official introduction to a man on a mission. When it comes to builds and documentation I always enjoy when passionate owners take the time to document each step to share with other enthusiasts. It doesn’t get much better than this when you’re trying to modify a car the right way with the right parts.
You can follow Felix on Instagram here.
Let’s not forget to mention that he started with an M3 Sedan that’s painted in factory BMW color known as ” Dakar Yellow” making it a 1 of 1 worldwide.
Of course the team over at IND helped build this car and share it with the world through their lens between going crazy on the interior and picking out only the best cosmetic mods you can do.
One thing that tends to get a bit annoying is having to shuffle through somebodies posts, multiple forums, different social media pages and just feeling lost. This post is aimed at putting everything in ONE spot to make it easy to understand, learn from, study, feel inspired, motivated and excited all at once.
I searched the entire internet for hours going through each forum post, Flickr feed, social media platform and here’s what I came up with. I’ll organize this blog by date so you can see the process of the build, what parts he used as well as who else ended up owning the car and the current owner. If you’re looking for parts for your M3, check out this link here to see more.
Full list of every mod at bottom of post. Enjoy!
July 12th, 2012 – Felix took delivery of his BMW E90 M3 in Dakar Yellow!
July 24th, 2012 – Felix wasted no time and sent the car off to HGMotorsports in San Diego, California to start the modifications.
“This week we were lucky enough to be graced with the only factory Dakar Yellow E90 M3 (sedan) in the states.
The customer came to us asking for more power; Being the premier certified ESS dealer in California, we installed the VT2 600 supercharger kit from ESS. The kit is color matched to the paint which makes for one unique M3.
Future plans include Brembo Big Brake kit, HRE wheels, and an Akraprovic exhaust system.”
August 12th, 2012 – Picked up a set of BBS wheels and a few other mods
In late 2012 Felix fitted his “SoCal Winter” wheel setup which included a set of Volk Racing TE37’s. It looks like this was the only photo I could find with this specific setup because just two months later EAS had posted on their Flickr an updated look for the wheels with a different finish in a lighter grey color.
I also noticed that the roof was black, so I assume that he did a carbon roof swap which I couldn’t find any photos of the process or information on that besides when IND did the install, so maybe he wrapped the roof before the carbon roof install?
February 6th, 2013 – Felix sent the car off to IND to get the ultimate treatment in mods. This is where the car really went to the next level.
Nate from IND shared a picture of their warehouse while they were waiting for the Dakar Yellow E90 to show up. Talk about a colorful showroom!
February 14th, 2013 – Car arrives at IND
February 27th, 2013 – Car gets torn down and prepped.
Akrapovic Evolution Exhaust System (Full Titanium)
ESS VT2-600 Supercharger W/Custom Dakar Yellow Manifold
CF Roof (Full roof replacement)
European Front Bumper
Vorsteiner GTS-V Carbon Fiber lip
Varis Japan Carbon Fiber Under Tray
3D Design Diffuser
Platte Form a.g. Carbon Fiber Side Skirt Extensions
KW Club Sport Suspension
Brembo Brakes (Custom Dakar Yellow Paint)
BBS FI wheels (Custom Painted Graphite Gray)
19×9.5 – Front
19×10.5 – Rear
PSS Tires
BBS Lug Nuts
BMW Performance Carbon Fiber Trunk Spoiler
BMW Performance Foot Pedals
BMW Performance Race Seats
BMW Performance Carbon Fiber Mirror Caps (Custom Painted)
Stack Gauges w/ custom pod
Piano Black w/Yellow Flake Interior Trim
Alcantara Headliner
Click here to shop all parts on this build
Car was sent to Fall Line Motorsports for a roll cage install.
Fall Line places this warning on all of their roll bars, including their competition cars running in professional race series all over the US. It may be an awkwardly worded legal disclaimer, but the reasoning behind it is sound- there is absolutely no way to know all of what can potentially happen in a racing crash. You can create the best roll cage in the world, but there are multi-car accidents, there are accidents when cars exit the track at 150mph +, and there are and always will be crashes that no amount of safety can protect from.
For that reason, no roll cage fabricator should make the claim that their piece of safety equipment will absolutely protect from an on-track collision. Anyone who has seen racing accidents even on film can understand this.
With all of that being said, Fall Line Motorsports is one of the most qualified racing houses in the US. With cars constantly campaigned in Grand Am, SCCA, NASA, and just about every other form of road racing available in the US, Fall Line is and always will be IND’s only trusted partner is safety equipment for our clients.
Car was completed and sent back to Felix to enjoy. Here’s the final result!
The official story from IND of Felix’s 2011 BMW E90 M3!
How do you take one of the best modified E90 M3s ever created, and make it even better? How do you add to a car nearly any enthusiast would call perfect, without taking the project too far? These are the questions we had to ask ourselves at IND when Felix’s amazing Dakar Yellow BMW Individual M3 arrived at our facility. Although we have all seen photos of this M3 before, and even provided many of the parts already on the car, my heart skipped a beat when this car rolled off of our car transport. Felix is a man of excellent taste, and has already created one of the best machines in the US, in terms of performance, feel, and of course it’s striking appearance.
Adding to this BMW Individual M3 without diluting it’s already spectacular presence and truly completing this M3 was our task. We knew that just a few missteps, a few custom parts too many would take this car too far, and that it would be crucial to proceed with good taste.
Enhancing the car’s details was our ultimate plan of attack, and to that end we addressed the exterior, interior, and engine bay with hopes of taking this M3 from amazing to world-beating.
We started outside the car by adding one of it’s key show pieces- the original carbon fiber mirrors from the BMW Motorsport program. Coupled with the car’s Varis diffuser and IND carbon roof, these mirrors perfectly enhance the personality of this Dakar beast. The remainder of the exterior of this car was already stellar, with BBS FI wheels, Brembo brakes, a Vorsteiner GTS-V front lip, a rear diffuser from 3D Design, and even the rare E90 M3 carbon roof conversion from us at IND, we knew that the exterior could be left well enough alone.
After installing the BMW Motorsport mirrors, we moved on to painted details, and addressed what felt like hundreds of small items. From the gloss black painted fasteners holding the Varis diffuser together, to the gloss black painted hose clamps in the engine bay, to the gloss black painted speaker surrounds inside the car, no stone was left unturned in creating a perfectly finished feel. The engine bay saw a comprehensive refinish with Carbon Fiber strut bars by Dinan, textured black powdercoated valve covers, Dakar yellow ignition coil covers, and painted ESS supercharger and diverter valve. The ESS intake manifold got a coating of Lamborghini’s Grigio Estoque paint, with a special addition of pearl coat from IND.
The bulk of the effort was spent on perfecting the car’s interior. The already fantastic BMW Performance seats were disassembled completely and re-stitched with Dakar Yellow thread in both the seat’s perimeter and BMW Performance logo located in the headrest. The seat backs were repainted in a high gloss black with yellow flake, designed to match the custom IND painted interior trim already in the car. The trim pieces in the seats were refinished in a simpler gloss black to give the seats an overall subtle look that could have come directly from BMW.
The dash was removed and reupholstered in black leather, again giving the work an original BMW Individual feel that would not detract from the rest of the car. To coordinate with the car’s headliner, the door panels were subtly split and their upper half was refinished in alcantara fabric, while leaving the lower half in original BMW leather to resist wear and maintain the car’s daily usability.
A genuine M3 GTS center arm rest was obtained through German contacts at BMW. From the arm rest the eye will travel back to the show piece of the interior- a custom built roll bar, welded in place as one piece by Fall Line Motorsports and finished in Dakar Yellow by IND. A rear closeout was built to resemble the M3 GTS as closely as possible, while adapting the closeout to the different dimensions of the sedan. Finally, yellow seat belts were added to the front of the car, and may be my personal favorite single piece on the car.
We hope that coupled with the parts we’d already provided for this E90 prior to it’s visit to IND, the work we’ve done over the past month and a half makes this Dakar Yellow E90 one of the best in the US.
May 18th, 2013 the car won first place at Bimmerfest!
Limited Release of Garage Welt x IND Powerbeast Skate Decks were made by IND!
April 13th, 2013 the car was featured in European Car Magazine!
After doing some serious digging, I found out about a user on the forums who goes by 1CleanM6. I saw that Felix had listed his car for sale but deleted all the information on the details and photos.
The only thing I have is that on August 30th, 2013 1CleanM6 offered to buy the car.
Reported on September 1st, 2013 the car was officially sold. Looks like it sold for $78,000 according to a few CC’d posts.
I ended up looking up 1CleanM6 and saw his previous posts, which included every single part almost of the Dakar Yellow E90 going up for sale. It looks as if he parted the car out entirely but I couldn’t find any additional photos of the car after it left Felix’s ownership.
After reading through about 100 posts, I saw the heat that he was getting for parting the car out. It’s pretty obvious that it was a specific car because of the fact that it’s a 1 of 1 Dakar Yellow E90, so I think enthusiasts were a bit upset to see it being parted out and an end to the build somewhat.
1CleanM6 said on Septermber 4th, 2013 –
“Guys relax.
Yes I got a sweet deal, but I’ve driven the car 50 miles and have been pulled over 2 times already in Glendale and one cop threatened to give me a referee ticket because of the catless system. Cars sitting until I figure it out. I’m just trying to make it more practical for everyday use. I’ve owned 8 cars in the last 2 years and after selling my e92m and range rover sport recently I thought I would lay low with just my Prius. This was an impulse buy, and the business I’m in cash is king, so I’m okay with parting some of it, this is too much car for maybe 99.9% of us. Felix was a real cool guy to deal with.”
I did a lot of research on where the car ended up after it was partred out. Looks like it belongs to Garage54 in Southern California. Here’s what I found on their Facebook and Instagram.
It looks like an Eventuri Plenum was installed and some TE37’s which looks very nice. I also found a photo of I ton the track and I’m not sure if this was under the ownership of the Garage54 or previous owner.
Looks like the new owners personal IG is @gh3ry and he made their own exhaust prototype to test on the car. He also added Custom Dakar Yellow matched Brembo GT-S 380mm front and rear with Type 3 Discs.
Here’s all the photos I could find from Gary’s ownership.
I put together every single photo I could find on the internet of this car. This blog took about 4-5 hours to put together and man, it’s amazing to see this car in so many variants. I can only imagine what it’ll look like next. Here’s a batch of photos I found from other photographers and shops online. Credits to IND, PowerBeast, Garage54, EAS, HGMS, and all the others who tagged the car on social media.
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I hope you learned something new and feel inspired in any kind of way.
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